\u05d5\u05d9\u05e7\u05e8\u05d0<\/p>\n
THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS<\/p>\n
Leviticus is the heart of Torah. Named for its opening word, \u05d5\u05d9\u05e7\u05e8\u05d0 (Vayikra), meaning \u201cAnd he called,\u201d it is the third book, the midpoint of the Five Books of Moses. Leviticus is the only one of the Five Books that takes place entirely at the foot of Mount Sinai. It records no journeys and very little narrative. In Leviticus, Israel has arrived at the destination established at the beginning of Exodus, the mountain of revelation, to receive the Torah. Throughout the book, Israel does not move from that exalted point.
\nThe instructions of Leviticus are at the heart of Torah as well. In Exodus, the tabernacle is constructed and the priesthood is ordained, but in Leviticus the priesthood begins their actual ministry. After it gives guidance to the priests, the book provides a law of holiness that shapes the identity of Israel. In Leviticus 19, this law of holiness restates the ten words given at Sinai, known as the Ten Commandments. In this aspect, too, Leviticus is at the heart of Torah, since the ten words are given first in Exodus 20, and then recounted in Deuteronomy 5. But halfway between the two, here in Leviticus, we have another version.
\nDespite this centrality, Leviticus is an inaccessible book to many readers. It details rituals of priesthood and sacrifice that have not been carried out for nearly 2000 years, rituals that hardly seem relevant to life in the 21st century. Even its ethical instructions deal with matters that have largely passed from the scene of contemporary life. We learn about dietary laws and agricultural practices that seem remote from our demanding lives. Chapters are taken up in discussing a category of diseases and symptoms that most of us lave never seen.
\nBut this summary ignores a central theme of Leviticus that ties it into the meta-narrative of Torah\u2014the theme of Creation to completion. The tabernacle that takes up so many of its pages is a model of Creation, the Creation that was \u201cvery good,\u201d which is yet to be brought to its fulfillment. The commandments of Leviticus are acts of restoration, each one anticipating this fulfillment. Even the arcane practices of purity and separation reenact the creative act of havdalah, of separating darkness and light, dry land and sea, which characterized God\u2019s work in the beginning.
\nTranslator Robert Alter comments:<\/p>\n
There is a single verb that focuses the major themes of Leviticus\u2014\u201cdivide\u201d (Hebrew, hivdil). That verb, of course, stands at the beginning of the \u2026 story of creation: \u201cAnd God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.\u2026 And God made the vault and it divided the water beneath the vault from the water above the vault, and so it was.\u201d \u2026 What enables existence and provides a framework for the development of human nature, conceived in God\u2019s image, and of human civilization is a process of division and insulation\u2014light from darkness, day from night, the upper waters from the lower waters, and dry land from the latter. That same process is repeatedly manifested in the ritual, sexual, and dietary laws of Leviticus.<\/p>\n
This process of setting apart and creating order is captured in the theme of holiness, a theme that has been present in the earlier books, but comes to the fore in Leviticus. Holiness is the point of all the myriad details of instruction throughout the book. As we go through these instructions we will see that the holiness that God intends is not fussy and prudish, but a reflection of his own glory. The refrain of Leviticus is, \u201cYou shall be holy, for I the Lord your God, am holy\u201d (Lev. 11:44\u201345, 19:2, 20:26).
\nIf we can see it, Leviticus describes a way of life for God\u2019s chosen people that reveals his own character in the midst of a world that is distant and estranged from him.<\/p>\n
FEARSOME NEARNESS
\nParashat Vayikra, Leviticus 1:1\u20135:26<\/p>\n
The Israeli postal service, which sorts more than 2 million pieces of mail a day, comes across several addressed to God, the Holy Land or Jesus. Rather than relegate the letters to bins of undeliverable mail, they are brought to the Western Wall, Judaism\u2019s holiest site, a few times a year. Postal authorities consider the letters private conversations with God and do not open them. Letters come from all corners of the globe, including a few from predominantly Muslim nations like Indonesia. \u201cThis place is the holiest place for the Jews, and it is the first gate for prayers. That\u2019s why a prayer in this place is important and these notes are important,\u201d said Shmuel Rabinovitch, chief rabbi at the site. The Western Wall is considered a remnant of the second Temple, and many people come to the wall to pray and slip notes with requests between the ancient stones.<\/p>\n
Where can we draw near to God? This story makes us wonder if there is a physical location that is somehow closer to the divine than any other.
\nExodus closes with a description of such a location, the tabernacle or Tent of Meeting, which is a model of the restored Creation of which the entire Torah speaks. Here the visible glory of God, or Shechinah, dwells so that no one can approach. Leviticus opens with a word of invitation from within that very tent. Indeed, Leviticus seems to open in mid-sentence, connecting to Exodus with its first word: \u201cAnd He called to Moses, and the Lord spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting \u2026\u201d The Lord does not want to leave us with the awe-inspiring distance of the end of Exodus, but is eager to call us close to himself, to approach the place that is closer to the divine than any other.
\nRashi notes that this invitation in Leviticus is not just, \u201cAnd he called,\u201d but \u201cAnd he called to Moses\u201d a phrase that is far more personal.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalling\u201d \u2026 is the language of affection, language that the ministering angels use, as it says, \u201cOne called to the other and said, \u2018Holy \u2026\u2019 \u201d The voice of God would go, and reach Moses\u2019 ears, and all of Israel would not hear it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he called\u201d is one word in Hebrew, vayikra. Its use here reveals a unique characteristic of the God of Israel. He is ultimately unknowable, unapproachable, other, but he is also the One who calls us close to himself, out of his own mercy and kindness. He is the transcendent God who issues eternal instructions to Moses, but he does so in words of intimacy and affection. He is the omnipresent God who fills the universe, but he provides a location where we can draw near to him. Thus, when the Israeli postal service treats letters addressed to God as private and confidential conversations, it reflects a biblical perspective.
\nA tiny detail in the handwritten Torah scroll used in every synagogue around the world sheds additional light on God\u2019s desire for nearness with us. The final letter of the opening word of Leviticus, vayikra, is alef\u2014t. According to tradition, this letter is written in a smaller font than the rest of the letters, almost as if it doesn\u2019t belong there. Without this alef, the word would be vayikar, \u201cand he met\u201d or \u201cand he encountered,\u201d a word that appears in the story of Balaam the false prophet: \u201cThen the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth \u2026\u201d (Num. 23:16).
\nThe similarity between these two words helps explain the small alef in vayikra.<\/p>\n
In his monumental humility, Moses wished to describe God\u2019s revelation to him with the same uncomplimentary word used for Balaam\u2014without an \u05d0\u2014but God instructed him to include the \u05d0 as an expression of affection. Too humble to do so wholeheartedly, Moses wrote a small t.<\/p>\n
Vayikra, the word spelled with the small alef, brings us back to Genesis, the account of beginnings. There we encountered the word in the story of the Garden of Eden: \u201cVayikra Adonai Elohim el haadam\u2014And the LORD God called to the man.\u2026\u201d But when Adam and Eve hear this call, they hide because to them God is fearsome and best kept at a distance. Yet, this same God is seeking them, calling out to them to return to him. And calling, as Rashi notes, \u201cis the language of affection.\u201d
\nThe God of Israel is both fearsome and near. He continues reaching out to Adam as he asks him, \u201cWhere are you?\u201d God invites Adam to come clean and come near. Adam, however, responds only to God\u2019s fearsomeness: \u201cI was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself\u201d (Gen. 3:10). God desires restored intimacy with Adam and Eve, but in the end, he must expel them from the Garden because of their sin. Nevertheless, he covers their nakedness, clothing them in the skins of animals. They are sent into exile, but not abandoned. The skins serve as a reminder that they need not (and of course cannot) hide from God.
\nLikewise, in Leviticus, the God who is holy and unapproachable seeks to bridge the distance between himself and his people. He calls out to Moses and instructs him how to draw near. He provides the way of access through a detailed system of sacrifices\u2014first hinted at in the skins of animals he gave as a covering to Adam and Eve.
\nThroughout Leviticus, as in all its texts, Scripture portrays God\u2019s fearsome nearness, a unique combination of unapproachable holiness and an extended hand of welcome. This combination reaches its fullest expression in the person of Messiah, in whom the transcendent God comes near to humankind. \u201cGod in the Messiah was reconciling mankind to himself\u2026\u201d (2 Cor. 5:19, CJB).
\nThe Western Wall in Jerusalem is the holiest site in Judaism today, a place where many believe they are closer to God than anywhere else. But the real question is not where we can draw near to God, but how. God in his holiness and power is unapproachable, but through the sacrifice that he provides we can draw near. In Messiah, as in the tabernacle long ago, we find a place of meeting.
\nWhen it comes time for this Messiah to choose those who will represent him before others, he first calls them near to himself. \u201cAnd He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons\u2026\u201d (Mark 3:13\u201315).
\nGod calls us to his fearsome nearness. Only as we respond and come near are we able to bear his image before a world that needs a glimpse of the divine.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Those who follow Messiah must live a hidden life near to God if they are to live a public life representing God. Am I responding fully to God\u2019s invitation to draw near to him?<\/p>\n
CONTINUAL WORSHIP
\nParashat Tsav, Leviticus 6:1\u20138:36<\/p>\n
Concerning the words in the Scriptures: \u201cWhen any man of you bringeth an offering to the Lord \u2026\u201d [Lev. 1:2] the rabbi of Rizhyn said: \u201cOnly he who brings himself to the Lord as an offering may be called a man.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first altar builder in the Bible was Noah, as we read, \u201cThen Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma\u201d (Gen. 8:20\u20132la).
\nWe might imagine that Noah built this altar to make a sin offering before the Flood came, so that he and his family could enter the ark confident in their right relationship with the Lord. Or we might imagine that he made an offering even earlier, to call on God to have mercy and hold back the waters of the Flood. But, no, Noah became the first altar builder after the great crisis of the Flood had passed, to express his gratitude and reverence for God. From this, we learn that the altar is not only a place for seeking mercy and forgiveness, but above all a place for worship. There will indeed be sacrifices upon the altar to provide forgiveness of sin, but first we see an offering of worship, presented to the Lord as \u201ca soothing aroma.\u201d
\nLikewise, in all of the details about offerings and priesthood in the early chapters of Leviticus, it is possible to lose the larger picture. The sacrificial system is about worship, and all worship, all coming-near-to-God, involves an offering. The sacrifices do not all deal with sin and forgiveness. Indeed, the instructions for the first type of sacrifice, the olah or elevation offering, do not mention sin at all. But all the sacrifices do express worship of God.
\nThe lesson for us: worship always involves an offering, something we present to the Lord that ultimately represents us. As the Rabbi of Rizhyn taught, a person must bring himself or herself to the Lord as an offering.
\nSince worship requires an offering, it requires fire as well, for it is by fire that the offering actually ascends to the Lord. Thus, this week\u2019s parashah opens with this instruction:<\/p>\n
This is the law of the burnt offering: The burnt offering shall be on the hearth upon the altar all night until morning \u2026 And the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not be put out. And the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order on it; and he shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. A fire shall always be burning on the altar; it shall never go out. (Lev. 6:9\u201313 [6:2\u20136])<\/p>\n
The name of the daily elevation offering, olah, derives from a verb meaning \u201cto go up.\u201d Since it is by means of fire that the offering \u201cgoes up\u201d to the Lord, olah is frequently translated as \u201cburnt offering.\u201d Translator Robert Alter notes the central role of fire in the sacrifices of Leviticus:<\/p>\n
Fire and blood are the two substances that are the key to the sacrificial rites, but the present passage gives preeminence to \u2026 fire\u2014the element associated with God\u2019s fiery epiphany at Sinai and with his first appearance to Moses in the Burning Bush. Hence an altar with a fire that \u201cshall not go out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fire \u201cshall not go out\u201d because it represents Adonai, the ever-present and unchangeable God. The instructions about sacrifice are not an esoteric list of rules and regulations, but a way of revisiting the grand narrative of God\u2019s self-revelation to Israel. The fire, as Alter says, reminds Israel of their encounter with God at Mount Sinai\u2014\u201cThe sight of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel\u201d (Exod. 24:17). As the fire burns continually, it reminds Israel that God abides in the camp throughout all their journeys.
\nHere is an additional lesson for us as worshipers of the God of Israel. It is the priests, the representative humans, who must keep the fire burning continually. We are to worship steadily and continually. Surely there will be high moments of worship, when we gather as the holy community on special days to offer praise before the Lord. But, like the priests, we are to keep the fire of worship burning in our lives at all times, and not let it go out.
\nTraditional Judaism promotes this sense of continual worship in numerous ways, such as by providing blessings for a great number of daily actions and events. It considers it a great mitzvah to recite one hundred blessings each day, and every blessing is itself an act of worship, beginning with the words: \u201cBlessed are you, O Lord our God, king of the universe. \u2026\u201d Thus, the flame of worship is kept burning continually.
\nLikewise, in the B\u2019rit Hadashah, Paul instructs us, \u201cAlways be joyful. Pray regularly. In everything give thanks, for this is what God wants from you who are united with the Messiah Yeshua\u201d (1 Thess. 5:16\u201318, CJB).
\nTrue worship requires an offering, and a true offering represents the offer of oneself to God. Such worship is continual, a fire that is not quenched. Such worship defines the holiness to which Leviticus calls us in every chapter. It requires us to make worship the central focus of our lives and to resist the self-centered, consumerist values of our day that would treat worship as one commodity among many. As the Lord brought us out of the bondage of Egypt, so Messiah brought us out of the bondage of sin, not just to improve our circumstances, but that we might worship him.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Real worship means that I offer myself to God, not just on special occasions, but continually. What can I offer to God today that will genuinely represent an offering of my whole self?<\/p>\n
MISREPRESENTING GOD
\nParashat Sh\u2019mini: Leviticus 9:1\u201311:47<\/p>\n
Now Aaron\u2019s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered before the LORD alien fire, which He had not enjoined upon them. And fire came forth from the LORD and consumed them; thus they died at the instance of the LORD. Then Moses said to Aaron,
\n\u201cThis is what the LORD meant when He said:
\nThrough those near to Me I show Myself holy,
\nAnd gain glory before all the people.\u201d
\nAnd Aaron was silent. (Lev. 10:1\u20133, NJPS)<\/p>\n
Nadab and Abihu must have sinned greatly to deserve such swift and decisive punishment. Yet, Scripture says only that they offered \u201calien fire,\u201d which God had not commanded them. Nadab and Abihu are priests, mediators between God and his people. Whatever the exact nature of their sin, it is clear that they somehow misrepresented God, because the Lord responds to their sin by saying, \u201cThrough those near to Me I show myself holy.\u201d Such misrepresentation is a grave offense indeed.
\nMoses learns the same lesson at the waters of Meribah. There, the Israelites complain because there is no water. The Lord tells Moses to speak to the rock, and it will bring forth water. Instead, Moses castigates the people for their complaining, and strikes the rock. Water comes forth, but the Lord tells Moses,<\/p>\n
Because you did not have-trust in me,
\nto treat-me-as-holy before the eyes of the Children of Israel, therefore:
\nyou shall not bring this assembly into the land that I am giving them! (Num. 20:12, Fox)<\/p>\n
As Moses tells Aaron after the death of his sons, the Lord will show himself holy through those near to him and will be glorified before all the people. At Meribah, however, Moses, like his nephews earlier, misrepresents God before the people\u2014and receives harsh judgment himself.
\nDuring most years, the reading of the story of Nadab and Abihu in the synagogue comes not long before Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. One of the essential books for understanding the Holocaust and its horrific impact upon the Jewish people is Night by Elie Wiesel. In his foreword to the book, the venerable French author Francois Mauriac writes of his first meeting with the young Wiesel. Wiesel tells Mauriac how his childhood faith perished in the living hell of Auschwitz, and Mauriac writes,<\/p>\n
What did I say to him? Did I speak of that other Israeli, his brother, who may have resembled him\u2014the Crucified, whose Cross has conquered the world? Did I affirm that the stumbling block to his faith was the cornerstone of mine, and that the conformity between the Cross and the suffering of men was in my eyes the key to that impenetrable mystery whereon the faith of his childhood had perished? Zion, however, has risen up again from the crematories and charnel houses. The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead. It is through them that it lives again. We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Eternal is the Eternal, the last word for each one of us belongs to Him. This is what I should have told this Jewish child. But I could only embrace him, weeping.<\/p>\n
Mauriac is right not to speak. Those who represented the Messiah whom Mauriac wanted to share with Wiesel had so misrepresented him that there was nothing left to say.\u201d Hitler, of course, was no Christian. But the seedbed for the Holocaust had been prepared by centuries of Christian anti-Semitism throughout Europe, and the Church had done little to protest the destruction of the Jews. We must remember the ten Booms and many other Christians who helped. We must give thanks for Christians since the Holocaust who have worked to overcome anti-Semitism and seek true reconciliation with the Jewish community. But we must also remember that during the Holocaust the vast majority of Christians, and especially the visible institutions, did not help.
\nIn the Protestant Netherlands, the Nazis offered a deal to the churches that were opposing the deportation of the Jews. If they would stop their protest, the Nazis would refrain from deporting those Jews who had become Christians. The Dutch Reformed Church accepted the deal and went silent concerning the fate of the majority of the Jewish community. On the other side of the European continent, a Lithuanian Catholic bishop met occasionally with the chief rabbi in his area. As the Nazi vice was tightening, the rabbi asked if the bishop could arrange for Jewish children to be hidden in monasteries. The bishop refused to intervene, saying that the monasteries were autonomous and, besides, \u201ctheir abbots and priors did not excel in mercy and love.\u201d Later that same year, 1943, the Nazis occupied Rome and rounded up its Jews under the windows of the Vatican, which made no public statement of concern or protest. Hitler and the Nazis were the great culprits of the Holocaust, but the Church was guilty of its own sin\u2014misrepresenting God by refusing to help the Jews. Those with a claim to be near to God failed to display his holiness in this tragic time.
\nNearly sixty years after the deportation of the Roman Jews, John Paul II became the first Pope to visit Israel\u2014in itself an act of apology. He visited Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, and prayed at the Western Wall, where he placed a prayer for forgiveness between its stones:<\/p>\n
God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your name to the nations. We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer. And asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant. Jerusalem, 26 March 2000. Signed: John Paul II.<\/p>\n
Today, Messianic Jews often meet with resistance or even rejection as we seek to follow Messiah in the midst of the larger Jewish community. Some resistance to the word of Messiah seems inherent to human nature, but Parashat Sh\u2019mini reminds us of the reason for a particularly Jewish resistance\u2014the misrepresentation of God in the name of Yeshua. Many Jews resist the message of Yeshua because he has been so tragically misrepresented among the Jewish people for so long.
\nIf we respond to this resistance by distancing ourselves from the Jewish community, we risk misrepresenting God ourselves. Instead, we have an opportunity to emulate Yeshua, who above all others is near to God \u2026 and who resolutely remains near to Israel, despite rejection. \u201cFor I say that the Messiah became a servant of the Jewish people in order to show God\u2019s truthfulness by making good his promises to the Patriarchs\u201d (Rom. 15:8, CJB).
\nNadab and Abihu were priests, mediators between God and Israel, who somehow went astray and misrepresented God. Their story teaches us how disastrous such misrepresentation can be. The Holocaust teaches us a further lesson. We can misrepresent God not only by doing the wrong thing, but simply by failing to do anything.
\nMessiah represents God by offering God\u2019s mercy, healing, and restoration, especially to the whole house of Israel, to \u201cconfirm the promises given to the patriarchs.\u201d Those who claim to follow Messiah are to do the same. Our hope is that among us, God might in some way \u201cshow himself as holy and be glorified before all the people\u201d (Lev. 10:3).<\/p>\n
For the journey: We can misrepresent God by doing nothing in the face of evil or need. What opportunities to represent God\u2019s love and mercy have I been overlooking\u2014opportunities that might be right in front of me today?<\/p>\n
EIGHTH DAY, FIRST DAY
\nParashat Tazria, Leviticus 12:1\u201313:59<\/p>\n
All of Creation is in need of redemption, as Scripture says:\u201d \u2026
\nwhich God created to do.\u201d (The Sefat Emet)<\/p>\n
Creation and redemption: we have been tracing these two great themes throughout the Torah from the beginning. The nineteenth century commentary called the Sefat Emet, or \u201clanguage of truth,\u201d claims that one verse, Genesis 2:3, summarizes both of these themes: \u201cThen God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God created to do\u201d (literal translation). The phrase \u201cwhich God created to do,\u201d according to this view, means that after God created all things, he began to do the work of redemption.
\nThe Sefat Emet goes on to note that human beings, created on the sixth and final day of Creation, have a share in this work of redemption. \u201cThe human was created last in deed, but first in the order of redemption. It is through humanity that Creation and redemption are joined together.\u201d
\nOn the sixth day, just before God entered the rest of the seventh day, he gave instructions to the newly formed human couple: \u201cBe fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it\u201d (Gen. 1:28). After six days of Creation, the work was not entirely finished. Humankind still had the task of filling and subduing the earth. This process is part of the redemption to which the Sefat Emet refers, not just redemption from sin (which hasn\u2019t even happened yet), but fulfillment of all that God intends for his Creation.
\nIn a similar vein, over three hundred years earlier, Sforno comments on Genesis 2:1. \u2018 \u201cThus the heaven and the earth were finished\u2019 \u2026 having reached the end purpose of existence in general.\u201d That is, heaven and earth are not finished in the sense that there is nothing left to be done, but in that they express the purpose of Creation \u201cin general.\u201d And what is that purpose? Redemption, or Tikkun in Hebrew, \u201cthe restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began\u201d (Acts 3:21).
\nIn a conversation spanning centuries, Sforno and the Sefat Emet agree on a point that has tremendous implications for us today. Creation holds within itself the seed of a new Creation. We have noted this theme throughout our study of Torah and it comes to the fore again, as we reach the midway point through Torah here in Parashat Tazria. The completion of God\u2019s original plan of Creation requires a new Creation, a spiritual rebirth for every human being. Thus, in Parashat Tazria, we read,<\/p>\n
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, \u201cSpeak to the children of Israel, saying: \u2018If a woman has conceived, and borne a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her customary impurity she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.\u2019 \u201d (Lev. 12:1\u20133)<\/p>\n
The eighth day is the first day of new Creation. In Genesis, the seven days are the week of Creation, but here they are seven days of impurity, followed by an eighth day that designates a new beginning. This is not to indicate that the \u201cold Creation\u201d is somehow corrupt and must be replaced by the new. Rather, the creation of the male child, which is in itself holy, does not reach its fulfillment, or redemption, until the eighth day, through circumcision. The holiness of Creation is elevated to a new level.
\nGod gives the original instruction concerning circumcision, of course, to Abraham:<\/p>\n
God further said to Abraham, \u201cAs for you, you and your offspring to come throughout the ages shall keep My covenant. Such shall be the covenant between Me and you and your offspring to follow which you shall keep: every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. And throughout the generations, every male among you shall be circumcised at the age of eight days.\u201d (Gen. 17:9\u201312, NJPS)<\/p>\n
Circumcision on the eighth day becomes havdalah, the boundary that distinguishes the household of Abraham, which is joined to the Lord through covenant, from the rest of humankind. We might say that God creates humanity on the sixth day, as the culmination of his work of Creation, and then creates a new humanity on the eighth day through circumcision.<\/p>\n
The eighth day is particularly significant because the newborn has completed a seven-day unit of time corresponding to the process of Creation. In like manner, Exodus 22:29 stipulates that the first-born of an animal is dedicated only on the eighth day after birth, and Leviticus 22:27 lays down that an animal is not fit for sacrifice before that day.<\/p>\n
The eighth day, then, is a day of new Creation that carries forward the purpose of the original Creation. Now we understand why the gospels emphasize the first day of the week in recounting the resurrection of Messiah. \u201cAfter Shabbat, as the next day was dawning, Miryam of Magdala and the other Miryam went to see the grave\u201d (Matt. 28:1, CJB). \u201cIn the evening that same day, the first day of the week, when the talmidim were gathered together behind locked doors out of fear of the Judeans, Yeshua came, stood in the middle and said, \u2018Shalom aleikhem [Peace to you]!\u2019 \u201d (Yochanan [John] 20:19, CJB). The first day is the eighth day, the first day of redemption.
\nGod himself accomplishes and guarantees this work of redemption, but he does so in partnership with humankind, ultimately embodied in Messiah himself. The eighth day reminds us that God created us not just to await redemption and certainly not just to await our \u201cheavenly reward\u201d in some other realm. Rather, we are to be active participants in the cosmic drama planned from Creation, a drama that reaches its turning point in the resurrection of Messiah.
\nThe Sefat Emet says, \u201cIt is through humanity that Creation and redemption are joined together.\u201d Messiah, the Son of God, becomes Son of Man to accomplish redemption, above all through his resurrection on the eighth day. As we respond, we join a new, reborn humanity that shares in the work of redemption until all comes to completion.<\/p>\n
For the journey: In humanity, Creation and redemption join together. We see this reality in Yeshua the Messiah, the Son of Man who brings redemption, but do we see it in ourselves? How do I participate in Tikkun, restoration of Creation, even today?<\/p>\n
THE LEPER PRIEST
\nParashat M\u2019tzora, Leviticus 14:1\u201315:33<\/p>\n
What is the Messiah\u2019s name? \u2026 The Rabbis said: His name is \u201cthe leper scholar,\u201d as it is written, Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him a leper, smitten of God, and afflicted.<\/p>\n
Leviticus speaks of a mysterious disease, or group of diseases, called tzara\u2019at, which we often translate as \u201cleprosy.\u201d A passage in the Talmud speaks of the Messiah as bearing this disease, a tremendous insight into our spiritual condition as human beings.
\nTzara\u2019at as described in the Torah differs from the leprosy that we know today in its symptoms and progression. Furthermore, tzara\u2019at afflicts garments and even the walls of houses as well as the skin of humans. Accordingly, tzara\u2019at must be a term for either a wide variety of diseases, or else a specific disease that existed only in the days when Israel lived under the priestly system in the Land of Israel.
\nThe person who suffers from this condition is a m\u2019tzora, which is the name of this week\u2019s parashah. The m\u2019tzora\u2019s diagnosis is mysterious, but clearly he embodies the opposite of the holiness that should characterize the people of Israel. For holiness to be preserved, the m\u2019tzora must be separated to live outside the camp, identifying himself as unclean so that no one will inadvertently touch him.<\/p>\n
Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, \u201cUnclean! Unclean!\u201d He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp. (Lev. 13:45\u201346)<\/p>\n
Even if a leper recovers from his disease, as in this week\u2019s reading, he is still not allowed within the camp. First, the priest must go to him outside the camp, and examine him for signs of the disease. If he passes this exam, the leper returns to the camp, but then undergoes a long and demanding process before he can be reintegrated into the community of Israel (Lev. 14:1\u201332).
\nWhen he suffers from the disease, his separation from Israel must be complete; when he is restored to Israel, his separation from the disease must be complete. The disease and the camp of God\u2019s people are utterly incompatible. Yet, though the leper is separated, he does not depart altogether; he remains \u201coutside the camp,\u201d apart yet waiting for the day of restoration.
\nThe text speaks of tzara\u2019at as a \u201cplague\u201d or nega, which provides the connection between Messiah and leprosy made by the sages of the Talmud. Isaiah writes of the one he calls the Servant, \u201cYet we esteemed him stricken [nagua], smitten by God, and afflicted\u201d (Isa. 53:4), or as the Talmud translates, \u201cYet we did esteem him a leper, smitten of God, and afflicted.\u201d And again, \u201cFor he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of my people he was stricken [nega]\u201d (Isa. 53:8). Since the Talmud recognizes that Isaiah\u2019s Servant in this passage is the Messiah, it portrays Messiah as a leper.
\nAnother Talmudic passage carries this connection even further.<\/p>\n
Rabbi Joshua bar Levi met Elijah standing by the entrance of Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai\u2019s tomb. He asked him: \u2018When will the Messiah come?\u2019\u2014\u2018Go and ask him himself,\u2019 was his reply. \u2018Where is he sitting?\u2019\u2014\u2018At the entrance.\u2019 \u2018And by what sign may I recognize him?\u2019\u2014\u2018He is sitting among the poor lepers: all of them untie their sores all at once, and rebandage them together, whereas he unties and rebandages each separately, thinking, should I be wanted, it being time for my appearance as the Messiah, I must not be delayed through having to bandage a number of sores.\u2019<\/p>\n
This remarkable midrash catches a great irony of the Jewish story. The messianic hope underlies the scriptures and prayers of the Jewish people. The messianic ideal is at the heart of Jewish thought. And yet, the one who fulfills this ideal, the Messiah himself, now dwells outside the camp of Israel, estranged from the Jewish people as a whole. He sits as a leper among the lepers \u201cat the entrance,\u201d that is, at the entrance of Rome, according to the rabbis. With uncanny insight, they imagined the Messiah in exile at the gates of Rome, the center of the Gentile\u2014and especially Christian\u2014world. There the Messiah waits for the call back to Jerusalem, back to his own people Israel, to whom he will reveal himself at the proper time.
\nThis great irony in the Jewish story leads to the great challenge for the Messianic Jewish community\u2014can we maintain our identification with this Messiah and with our Jewish people at the same time? We claim to be a bridge between the Jewish world and the Messiah whose name is a scandal in the Jewish world. Like the Messiah we follow, we often find ourselves outside the camp of Israel. Can we, like him, remain loyal to our own people within the camp?
\nThe same issue confronts all who would follow Yeshua. Nearness to Messiah often creates distance from friends and loved ones. In the 21st century, as in the first, Yeshua is often found outside the established religious world, and even beyond the bounds of social acceptability. Are we willing to follow him there?
\nThe instructions for restoring a leper will help us answer this question. A cleansed leper must go through a ritual of restoration that resembles the ritual of consecration for the priests. Like the new priest, the leper brings an elaborate offering and undergoes a seven-day period of consecration (Lev. 14:1\u201332; cf. 8:1\u20139:1). On the eighth day of the priest, he begins his ministry in the tabernacle; on the eighth day of the leper, he appears before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle. There the leper brings a trespass offering, and then, \u201cThe priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot\u201d (Lev. 14:14)\u2014the same ritual that Moses performs to consecrate the sons of Aaron (Lev. 8:24).
\nThe leper is like a priest because he preserves holiness in the camp of Israel by bearing impurity out from the camp in his own body. His solitary affliction is for the benefit of the whole community. Surely, this is true of the afflictions of Messiah, the leper scholar. Furthermore, the leper was \u201clike one dead\u201d (Num. 12:12), and now that he is cleansed he is alive, cast out and now restored. He is like a priest in this way as well, because he dwells among his people as a sign of God\u2019s restorative power. Likewise, our life in Messiah is incomplete unless it is a sign of Messiah\u2019s restoration to those estranged from him.<\/p>\n
For the journey: The restoration of the leper reminds us of our restoration in Messiah. We have been restored to the camp to be a sign of restoration to others. Messiah cannot imagine the day of redemption apart from his return to his people. How can we imagine our redemption to be complete apart from the redemption of all Israel, which is a key to the redemption of all peoples?<\/p>\n
TO AZAZEL\u2026 AND BACK
\nParashat Acharei Mot, Leviticus 16:1\u201318:30<\/p>\n
If God lived on earth, people would break his windows (Yiddish proverb)<\/p>\n
This proverb, like the Torah itself, recognizes a certain perverseness in human nature. When God \u201clived on earth\u201d within the cloud of glory that rested upon the tabernacle, his people did \u201cbreak his windows\u201d through sin and unbelief. But God in his mercy provided a Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, a day of cleansing and restoration from sin, which allowed him to remain in the midst of Israel.
\nThe central figure in the Yom Kippur ritual of old is sometimes called the \u201cscapegoat.\u201d We use this term in ordinary speech to refer to someone who bears the blame for the misdeeds of others, but it may actually represent a misunderstanding of the biblical ordinance of Yom Kippur.
\nThere, the Lord instructs Aaron to bring two goats on the Day of Atonement: \u201c[A]nd he shall place lots upon the two goats, one marked for the LORD, and the other marked for Azazel.\u201d Aaron sacrifices the goat marked for the Lord, and takes the other goat, marked for Azazel, lays both his hands on its head \u201cand confess[es] over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat; and it shall be sent off to the wilderness through a designated man\u201d (Lev. 16:8, 21, NJPS).
\nAzazel in this passage is often translated as \u201cscapegoat\u201d, but commentators have struggled over its meaning for centuries and have developed three possible interpretations, only one of them yielding this translation:<\/p>\n
1. Azazel can designate the place, the \u201cinaccessible Region\u201d to which the goat is sent (Lev. 16:22, NJPS). Thus the Talmud interprets the first syllable of Azazel as \u2018az, meaning \u201cstrong\u201d or \u201cfierce,\u201d so that the word means \u201ca fierce land.\u201d
\n2. Azazel may name the goat itself, as a contraction of \u2018ez (goat) and azal (to go away). This is the source of the English \u201cscapegoat,\u201d a contraction of \u201cescape goat.\u201d
\n3. Azazel may be the name of a demonic power ruling over the wilderness to which the goat is sent. Ibn Ezra refers to this interpretation in his commentary on 16:8.<\/p>\n
If you would understand the hidden meaning behind the word Azazel, you would also understand the hidden meaning behind its concept, for it has its associations in the Torah. I will give you a hint: when you reach thirty-three you will know.<\/p>\n
This third possibility is the most puzzling to our modern ears, and worth some exploration. If we take Ibn Ezra\u2019s hint and count thirty three verses past the introduction of Azazel in Leviticus 16:8, we come to Leviticus 17:7: \u201c[T]hat they may offer their sacrifices no more to the goat demons after whom they stray\u201d (NJPS). Now we\u2019re even more puzzled. If Azazel is a demonic power, offering the goat to it appears to be just the sort of offering to \u201cthe goat demons\u201d that the Torah prohibits here. Certainly, God is not telling us that on Yom Kippur we must purchase our holiness by appeasing the demons!
\nRamban seeks to resolve this difficulty.<\/p>\n
Now the Torah has absolutely forbidden to accept other gods as deities, or to worship them in any manner. However, the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us that on the Day of Atonement we should let loose a goat in the wilderness, to that \u201cprince\u201d which rules over wastelands, and this goat is fitting for it because he is its master, and destruction and waste emanate from that power, which in turn is the cause of \u2026 the sword, wars, quarrels, wounds, plagues, division and destruction.<\/p>\n
Ramban goes on to explain that the goat is not sacrificed to Azazel; indeed, there is no sacrifice involved at all, for its blood is not shed. Instead, this goat \u201cshall be left standing alive before the Lord, to make expiation with it, and to send it off to the wilderness for Azazel\u201d (Lev. 16:10, NJPS). The goat does not involve worship of Azazel the \u201cprince\u201d of the wastelands, God forbid. Rather, the goat belongs to the Lord who uses it as a means of separating between the holy and the unholy. He commands Israel to send it away to this other power, along with all their sins and impurities, so the camp or Israel may remain holy.
\nIn his interpretation, Ramban brings together the three alternatives listed above. He sees \u201cAzazel\u201d as a compound of two words, ez (goat) and azal (going). Thus, it can refer to the \u201cgoing goat\u201d itself, to the place where the goat goes, and to the power resident in that place. Such a place is utterly apart from Israel in its holiness; by casting out the goat bearing all unholiness into another place, Israel remains holy.
\nHundreds of years after this ordinance was given, the prophet Isaiah used similar terms to speak of a mysterious figure he called the Servant, who is \u201cdespised\u201d and \u201crejected\u201d and \u201ccut off out of the land of the living\u201d (Isa. 53:3, 8). The prophet reveals that the cast out Servant is bearing the sins of Israel, just as the goat bore the sins of Israel. Indeed the same three categories\u2014sin, iniquity, and transgression\u2014that appear in Leviticus 16:21 reappear throughout Isaiah 53. The rabbinic literature centuries later understood these three terms to describe the full range of sin, all that would require atonement on Yom Kippur (for example Soncino Talmud, Yoma 36b).
\nMessianic Jews and Christians, of course, see the sin bearer of Isaiah 53 as Yeshua the Messiah. When his time comes to offer himself up, he does not do so within the holy city as a Temple sacrifice. Instead he is cast out of the city, and finally outside the boundaries of Jewish life and identity, out to Azazel\u2014the wilderness of estrangement from God.
\nRemarkably, Ramban identifies this wilderness, the land of Azazel, with Rome: \u201cIn short, it is the spirit of the sphere of Mars, and its portion among the nations is Esau [a code word throughout rabbinic literature for Rome], the people that inherited the sword and the wars\u2026,\u201d
\nYeshua is handed over to Esau-Rome and crucified. Then, through his resurrection he returns from this exile, no longer bearing our sins but bearing forgiveness and new life.<\/p>\n
Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
\nAnd He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
\nBecause He poured out His soul unto death,
\nAnd He was numbered with the transgressors,
\nAnd He bore the sin of many,
\nAnd made intercession for the transgressors. (Isa. 53:11\u201312)<\/p>\n
If God lived on earth, we would break his windows. In Yeshua, God has borne such rejection, removed it from us, and brought forgiveness in its stead. \u201cFor on that day he shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the LORD\u201d (Lev. 16:30, literal translation). The p\u2019shat, or plain sense, of this verse is that \u201che\u201d who makes atonement is the High Priest, but another interpretation says that \u201che\u201d is the Lord himself. The one most offended by sin is the one who ultimately bears away our sins, that we might be restored to him.<\/p>\n
For the journey: On Yom Kippur, the one who has been offended, the only one innocent of sin, is the one who brings forgiveness and restoration. In those relationships in which I have been offended and wronged, is there a way that I can take the initiative in bringing restoration?<\/p>\n
JUSTICE AND BEYOND
\nParashat K\u2019doshim, Leviticus 19:1\u201320:27<\/p>\n
\u201cThese people who can see right through you never quite do you justice\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice is a dominant theme throughout Leviticus, an aspect of the holiness that must characterize God\u2019s people. Hence, when Leviticus introduces a code of holiness in Parashat K\u2019doshim it details the justice required of Israel.
\nThe code\u2019s most famous line, however, envisions a limit to justice, or perhaps a more profound justice than can be captured by any code: \u201cYou shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD\u201d (Lev. 19:18). Here in a word, Torah\u2019s vision of holiness and justice is fulfilled.
\nThe Torah does not imply that all our grudges are misdirected, or that there is never anything to avenge. We will indeed encounter injustice in the course of our lives, and we are normally to join with the Lord in the pursuit of justice. But here at its heart, the code of holiness focuses not on strict justice, but on love of neighbor. And the Lord reminds us who is ultimately responsible for justice by concluding this instruction with the words, \u201cI am the LORD.\u201d He is the one who will pursue justice in any given situation, but here he assigns us other responsibilities.
\nIn the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead, the narrator, an elderly Iowa pastor, tells the story of his grandfather. As a boy, in the early 1800\u2019s, the grandfather had seen a vision of Jesus as a slave\u2014\u201cthe Lord, holding out his arms to him, which were bound in chains. My grandfather said, \u2018Those irons had rankled right down to His bones.\u2019 \u201d Unable to forget this dream, the grandfather moved to Kansas, where he preached against slavery, sometimes with a loaded pistol in his belt, ready to do justice on behalf of the oppressed. When the Civil War broke out, he welcomed it as divine cleansing upon the sinful nation, and lost an eye in service as a chaplain with the Union Army.
\nThe grandfather was zealous for the justice of God, but sometimes all too human in seeking it. He once caught his grandson, the narrator, in some misbehavior, and glared at him with his lone eye. The grandson remembered:<\/p>\n
But I was a child at the time, and it seems to me he might have made some allowance. These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you\u2019re making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some notice.<\/p>\n
The Torah\u2019s code of holiness, like Gilead, reminds us that there is a human justice that serves no justice at all. The grandson turns tables on the grandfather by showing how the grandfather misses justice. Likewise, the code of holiness turns tables on us, lest we become too intent on justice and thereby unjust, too intent on pursuing purity and thereby become impure.
\nIn the midst of its detailed rulings about holiness and purity, Leviticus assigns us the task of grace. Yeshua was once teaching about this commandment to love your neighbor when a lawyer asked him a reasonable enough question, \u201cAnd who is my \u2018neighbor\u2019?\u201d (Luke 10:29, CJB) In other words, \u201cJust how much is this commandment going to demand of me?\u201d \u201cHow much justice must I pursue?\u201d Leviticus reminds us that strict justice sometimes fails, and when it does, we must relinquish the desire for revenge. Indeed, we cannot even hold a grudge. In response to the lawyer\u2019s question, however, Yeshua goes even further. It is no longer enough to refrain from holding a grudge; now you must positively seek the good of the other.<\/p>\n
Taking up the question, Yeshua said: \u201cA man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him naked and beat him up, then went off, leaving him half dead. By coincidence, a priest was going down on that road; but when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite who reached the place and saw him also passed by on the other side. \u201cBut a man from Shomron who was traveling came upon him; and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. So he went up to him, put oil and wine on his wounds and bandaged them. Then he set him on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day, he took out two days\u2019 wages, gave them to the innkeeper and said, \u2018Look after him; and if you spend more than this, I\u2019ll pay you back when I return.\u2019 Of these three, which one seems to you to have become the \u2018neighbor\u2019 of the man who fell among robbers?\u201d He answered, \u201cThe one who showed mercy toward him.\u201d Yeshua said to him, \u201cYou go and do as he did.\u201d (Luke 10:30\u201337, CJB)<\/p>\n
The priest and the Levite may have good reasons to cross over to the other side. Perhaps they have found exemptions from the command to love your neighbor, some reason why it does not apply in their case, or under these circumstances. But you, Messiah says, are obligated nonetheless. Your neighbor is the one you encounter in need, the one you are able to love not in theory, but through practical and sacrificial action.
\nThe lawyer who asked for a limit to the commandment wanted to justify himself. The commandment, however, ends with the words, \u201cI am the LORD,\u201d reminding us that its focus is divine justice, not self-justification. The entire code of holiness is framed in the same terms. It opens with the Lord\u2019s words to Moses, \u201cSpeak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: \u2018You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy\u2019 (Lev. 19:1\u20132), and closes with the instruction, \u201cAnd you shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy \u2026\u201d (Lev. 20:26).
\nIn Leviticus, justice and holiness are closely related. Both are found only in the emulation of God, who alone is holy and just. Forgetting this, we become self righteous and holier than thou. We become like those \u201cpeople who can see right through you,\u201d but \u201cnever quite do you justice.\u201d The justice and holiness of God do not gaze from a distance at the messy realities of life, but actively engage them. The Samaritan is a despised outsider, who might well have held a grudge against his Jewish neighbors. Instead, he fulfills the Torah far better than their experts do. The Samaritan who washed the wounded man, hoisted his body onto his donkey, and dug into his purse for extra coins to cover his expenses, is holy. The priest and Levite\u2014who have kept their hands clean\u2014are not.
\nThe lawyer asks his question because he wants to justify himself. In response, Yeshua tells about an outsider who goes beyond self-justification to fulfill Torah. The moral for the lawyer and for us as well: \u201cGo and do likewise.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the journey: My neighbor is the one who needs a neighbor. Holiness requires that I find such neighbors and provide the help they need. When I ask \u201cWho is my neighbor?\u201d am I hoping to narrow my neighborhood or expand it? Am I ready to show mercy to a stranger?<\/p>\n
TIMES OF ENCOUNTER
\nParashat Emor, Leviticus 21:1\u201324:23<\/p>\n
At a book tour event in 2000, author Tim LaHaye told the audience about the conception of the Left Behind series.<\/p>\n
In about 1985, one of my dearest friends, Shirley Peters \u2026 mentioned the idea of the rapture taking place on an airplane. Then a few days later, while I was flying in a 747 jet across the country to a prophecy conference \u2026 I got to thinking about the idea Shirley had mentioned: \u201cWhat if the rapture took place?\u201d According to a Gallup poll, about one-third of the population claim to be born-again; so about one-third of the people on the 747 would be gone. And the stewardess would discover their clothes and pound on the door and shout, \u201cCaptain, a hundred people are missing from our aircraft.\u201d And the rest is history.<\/p>\n
The Left Behind book series, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, has enjoyed vast popularity with its portrayal of the rapture (in which believers in Yeshua are removed from the earth to meet him in the air [ 1 Thess. 4:16\u201317]) and the Great Tribulation that follows. The series draws heavily on the book of Revelation to develop its particular midrash on the end of the age. Bible readers who are fascinated with this subject rarely turn to the book of Leviticus to gain insight into biblical prophecy. The Levitical festivals, however, provide a perspective on the Age to Come far different from Left Behind.
\nWe saw that Leviticus opened with the Lord\u2019s call to Moses out of \u05d0\u05d4\u05dc \u05de\u05d5\u05e2\u05d3 ohel mo\u2019ed, the tent of meeting, or the tabernacle, which had been the focal point of the final chapters of Exodus, and remained the focal point in Leviticus. In Leviticus 23, however, the focus shifts to \u05de\u05d5\u05e2\u05d3\u05d9\u05dd mo\u2019adim, the plural form of mo\u2019ed, which refers to the appointed festivals of the Lord. The story turns from the tent of meeting, to the times of meeting. Israel encounters the divine not only in the tent of meeting, but also in the seasons of the year.
\nThe tabernacle, as we have seen, is a model of the restored, ideal Creation. As the tabernacle\u2014ohel mo\u2019ed\u2014is a symbol of restoration in the midst of the camp, so the festivals\u2014the mo\u2019adim\u2014are moments of restoration in the midst of the ordinary days of the year.
\nThe word mo\u2018adim first appears in Genesis 1:14. \u201cThen God said, \u2018Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons [mo\u2019adim].\u2019 \u201d From the beginning of Creation, the Lord ordains the holy times to remind us for all generations of the original integrity of the Creation and of God\u2019s purpose of renewing all things.
\nThus, Shabbat opens the list of festivals, because it is a memorial of Creation (Exod. 31:17). It also anticipates \u201cthe day that will be all Shabbat,\u201d when the goodness of Creation will be restored, and humankind will at last be at rest within it.
\nEvery festival partakes of this prophetic quality of Shabbat. So, we are told on Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks: \u201cWhen you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God\u201d (Leviticus 23:21\u201322).
\nMoses had already instructed the Israelites to leave the gleanings for the poor a few chapters earlier, in Leviticus 19:9\u201310. Why does he repeat it here? Because Shavuot is the festival of the grain harvest, and a holy harvest requires the Israelites to conduct it with respect for the poor and the stranger in their midst. The poor have a rightful share in the harvest, even though they have no land of their own, because they too are created in the image of God and have dominion over all the earth. In the Age to Come the divine image will be restored in every human being. Shavuot anticipates the conditions of that age, when there will be no more hunger and poverty, and no one will be a stranger, but all will have a share in the abundance of the Lord.
\nIn addition, Shavuot is the anniversary of the giving of Torah on Mount Sinai, which was also a restoration of divine order. On the Shavuot following Yeshua\u2019s resurrection, he poured out the Spirit upon all of his followers gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 2:33). This outpouring anticipated the Age to Come, when the Spirit of God will be abundantly available to all, young and old, male and female, Jew and Gentile, and \u201cthe earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea\u201d (Isa. 11:9).
\nWhen the Spirit was poured out on Shavuot, Jews were present, \u201cdevout men, from every nation under heaven\u201d (Acts 2:5). As members of the priestly nation of Israel, constituted at the first Shavuot at Mount Sinai, these men were the representatives of all the nations, which will partake of the Spirit in the Age to Come. The infilling of the Spirit is not primarily an individual experience of divine power, but a share in the powers of the Age to Come, already present through Messiah Yeshua.
\nThe preview of the Age to Come that we see in Shavuot is evident in all the biblical festivals. Thus, for example, the instructions for Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) include this: \u201cAnd you shall rejoice in your festival, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant and the Levite, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, who are within your gates\u201d (Deut. 16:14). On this day of joy, all are to be included in rejoicing. The conditions of this age\u2014bondage, poverty, bereavement, and alienation\u2014are overcome by the abundant joy of the Age to Come.
\nWhen the Torah anticipates the Age to Come, its focus is not so much on who is taken up and who is left behind, but on a restoration of divine order that includes the dignity and well-being of all humanity. In the appointed festivals, God commanded Israel to enact this restoration each year by ensuring that the poor were fed, the lonely were enabled to rejoice, and the outsiders were brought near. In those high points of the year, at least, in God\u2019s design, no one was left behind.<\/p>\n
For the journey: The biblical festivals reveal that when we practice ethical behavior or show compassion for the disadvantaged, we are doing a dress rehearsal for the kingdom of God. Who are the gleaners\u2014the strangers, fatherless, and widows\u2014who need to be included in my harvest?<\/p>\n
JUBILEE IS COMING
\nParashat B\u2019har, Leviticus 25:1\u201326:2<\/p>\n
Forever young, forever young,
\nMay you stay forever young.<\/p>\n
Have you ever wished that you could start over? That you could be \u201cforever young,\u201d as in the Bob Dylan song\u2014going back to your earliest years of life to erase all your mistakes, cancel all your debts, undo all your sins?
\nThis may sound like wishful thinking, but it was a reality in the Torah legislation of the Jubilee. From one Jubilee to the next, the Israelites counted forty-nine years\u2014seven sevens of years. Seven, the number of perfection, was itself perfected. Then came the fiftieth year, in which Moses instructed the people to \u201cproclaim liberty throughout all the land,\u201d so that \u201cyou shall return, each man to his holding and you shall return each man to his family\u201d (Lev. 25:10). The liberty of Jubilee restores to its original owners any land holding that had been sold, and to his family any Israelite who had fallen into slavery. Jubilee returns Israel to the original order that the Lord intended for it, the order that he will restore forever in the Age to Come.
\nThe count of forty-nine years between one Jubilee and the next reminds us of the count of forty-nine days leading up to Shavuot outlined in the previous parashah. There we saw that Shavuot, like all of the festivals, anticipates the conditions of the Age to Come. The laws of Shavuot provide a share of the harvest to all who live in Israel, anticipating the restored justice of the kingdom of God. Even more than Shavuot and the rest of the festivals of Leviticus 23, however, Jubilee provides a foretaste of \u201cthe day that will be all Shabbat, and rest for everlasting life.\u201d
\nJubilee expresses the themes of holiness and havdalah, which sound throughout Leviticus. It distinguishes one year as separate from and uncorrupted by ordinary pursuits, thereby making holy the passage of all the years.
\nAs the year of restoration in Israel, Jubilee shapes the messianic hope of restoration described in the Scriptures and beyond. Thus, Ezekiel employs Jubilee language to rebuke the false shepherds of Israel. They have not done for Israel what the Jubilee is designed to do: \u201cThe weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost; but with force and cruelty you have ruled them\u201d (Ezek. 34:4).
\nEzekiel proclaims that the Lord intends the liberty of the year of Jubilee for all who are broken and estranged. God promises that the day will come when he himself will accomplish what the shepherds of Israel have failed to do. \u201cI will feed my flock, and I will make them lie down. I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong, and feed them in judgment\u201d (Ezek. 34:15\u201316).
\nThe hope of Jubilee restoration echoes through the prophets and into the prayers of Israel. In the second blessing of the Amidah, the traditional series of blessings recited every day, we address the Lord as the One who \u201cupholds the living in lovingkindness, raises the dead in great mercy, supports the fallen, heals the sick, releases the bound, and keeps his faith to those asleep in the dust\u201d (from the Siddur).
\nThe accounts of the life of Messiah also echo this hope. When Yochanan, or John the Baptist, was bound in prison, he sent two of his disciples to ask Yeshua, \u201cAre you the one who is to come, or should we look for someone else?\u201d Yeshua answered, \u201cGo and tell Yochanan what you are hearing and seeing\u2014the blind are seeing again, the lame are walking, people with tzara\u2018at [a skin disease resulting from God\u2019s judgment upon sin] are being cleansed, the deaf are hearing, the dead are being raised, the Good News is being told to the poor\u2014and how blessed is anyone not offended by me!\u201d (Matt. 11:3\u20136, CJB).
\nWhy would one be offended by Yeshua? Because he claims to be Messiah at a time when the Jubilee is not fully established. Yochanan remains imprisoned. Roman armies occupy the land of Israel. But Yeshua shows that the Jubilee has indeed begun with his arrival in Israel, and so will inevitably be fulfilled. In the meantime, do not be offended, but maintain hope.
\nOnce during a discussion with a group of intermarried Jewish-Christian couples, one of the Jewish men said, \u201cOK, Yeshua is a great guy. I\u2019ll even accept that he is the greatest guy, but Messiah\u2014who knows? Besides, who needs a Messiah?\u201d
\nI could have told my friend that I needed a Messiah and Yeshua proved himself as Messiah to me \u2026 and that if you ever figure out that you need a Messiah, Yeshua will be there for you too. Instead, I focused on the corporate aspect. You may not realize that you need a Messiah, but you cannot deny that this world does. Just look at the suffering, injustice, and oppression all around us. Yeshua embodies the hope of liberty, of a return to God\u2019s order and justice that is rooted in the Torah and reflected throughout our Scriptures and prayers. Yeshua has already launched a restoration that has had immeasurable impact on the world we live in, and is evidence of redemption to come. My personal story of salvation is a foretaste of the worldwide Jubilee that Messiah will bring in the end.
\nJubilee decrees that each one is to return to his family and to his holding. In our day of isolation and estrangement, this promise is especially significant. In the final chapters of Leviticus, God provides a way of return to himself which anticipates the great restoration that is the underlying theme of all the books of Torah. This return restores us to families and friendships that have been damaged, and to our share in Scripture and the tradition that flows from it.
\nThose who follow Messiah Yeshua believe that he is the one who brings about this return. Therefore, we refuse to account our personal Jubilee complete apart from the Jubilee for all Israel, which ultimately is the Jubilee that restores all humanity.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Jubilee must be proclaimed. Moses says, \u201cYou shall sound the shofar, and you shall proclaim liberty\u201d (Lev. 25:9\u201310, paraphrased). As we await the Jubilee to come, may we proclaim the Jubilee that is already here in Messiah Yeshua, so that many in Israel and beyond may return to their families and their holdings.<\/p>\n
POSSESSION AND DISPOSSESSION
\nParashat B\u2019chukkotai, Leviticus 26:3\u201327:34<\/p>\n
Beruriah, the wife of the great Rabbi Meir, was a woman of godly wisdom and character. One Shabbat, when Meir is at prayer, she discovers that their two sons have died. Meir returns from prayer and asks after the two boys, but Beruriah puts him off until the close of Shabbat. Then she poses a question: \u201cSome time ago, I was given a treasure to guard, and now the owner wants it back. Must I return it?\u201d \u201cOf course,\u201d replies Meir, probably wondering what his wife is thinking. Then she leads him into the bedroom and shows him the bodies of their two sons. \u201cThese are the treasures, and God has taken them back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief among the lessons of this story is this: the things that we hold most precious in life really do not belong to us, but to God. And if we cannot possess even these most precious things, we ultimately possess nothing at all. This dispossession, however, does not leave us impoverished. Dispossession implies loss, or even violation, but in God\u2019s design, it may draw us into boundless riches, as we may hope that Beruriah and Meir discovered.
\nThe final chapters of Leviticus speak of possession and dispossession to reflect the big story of the Torah, that we are on our way from Creation to completion. As Leviticus concludes, it reminds us that all the narratives and instructions of Torah guide us on this journey.
\nIn most years, we read the final parashiyot of Leviticus, B\u2019har and B\u2019chukkotai, together as one week\u2019s portion, and both take place in the same setting at the foot of Sinai. B\u2019har opens, \u201cAnd the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai\u2026\u201d (Lev. 25:1) B\u2019chukkotai (and the entire book of Leviticus) concludes, \u201cThese are the commandments which the LORD commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai\u201d (Lev. 27:34). Gathered at Mount Sinai, the Israelites receive a final set of instructions before they depart for the land of promise. No one imagined at this time that thirty-eight more years of wandering lay ahead. Instead, these instructions were to be the final orders before Israel entered its inheritance. Accordingly, Sforno notes: \u201cNow, Moses our Teacher mentions this chapter here [Lev. 25:1] because he thought that they would immediately enter the Land, as he testified, saying, We are journeying to the place (Numbers 10:29).\u201d
\nThus, at this crucial moment, as Israel thinks about taking possession of the Promised Land, it is even more striking to realize that this inheritance will not really belong to Israel at all. The land re-mains the Lord\u2019s property, and will revert every fifty years to the original division decreed by Moses to the first generation to enter the land. Thus, each share in the land of Israel is a holding, or achuzah in the Hebrew, not a possession. Every fiftieth year, the Israelites shall \u201cproclaim freedom throughout the land for all its inhabitants.\u2026 Each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family\u201d (25:10).
\nIn its final parashiyot, then, Leviticus introduces the principle of dispossession, a key to life in the Age to Come. Ownership implies the right to use one\u2019s property however one desires, including the right to sell it. But the Israelites cannot sell any holding within their inheritance.<\/p>\n
In buying from your neighbor, you shall deduct only for the number of years since the jubilee; and in selling to you, he shall charge you only for the remaining crop years: the more such years, the higher the price you pay; the fewer such years, the lower the price; for what he is selling you is a number of harvests. (Lev. 25:15\u201316, NJPS)<\/p>\n
The same principle of dispossession concludes the instructions here at the end of Leviticus. \u201cAll tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the LORD\u2019S; they are holy to the LORD. \u2026 All tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd\u2019s staff, shall be holy to the LORD\u201d (Lev. 27:30, 32). The tithe indicates that the produce of the land and of the flock does not ultimately belong to Israel, but to God.
\nAs Rabbi Hillel noted long ago, \u201cthe more possessions, the more worry.\u201d In our age of consumerism, an age that elevates greed into a virtue, we need to revisit this law of dispossession. It is meant to permeate all of life. We spend our energies worrying about what we have acquired or not acquired, but in the end, we acquire nothing. The law of dispossession relieves us of such worries, and does far more. It provides a way of nearness to God.
\nPossessions may sometimes be a gift from God, but they can stand between us and God. Thus, Messiah\u2019s invitation to follow him involves dispossession: \u201cWhoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple\u201d (Luke 14:33). Moreover, he enacts the story of dispossession to the fullest:<\/p>\n
Let your attitude toward one another be governed by your being in union with the Messiah Yeshua:
\nThough he was in the form of God,
\nhe did not regard equality with God
\nsomething to be possessed by force.
\nOn the contrary, he emptied himself,
\nin that he took the form of a slave
\nby becoming like human beings are.
\nAnd when he appeared as a human being,
\nhe humbled himself still more
\nby becoming obedient even to death\u2014
\ndeath on a stake as a criminal! (Phil. 2:5\u20138, CJB)<\/p>\n
Yeshua\u2019s act of dispossession is on our behalf. He endured death as the obedient son of Adam so that all the disobedient children of Adam may endure life instead of death. His act, however, is also an example for us, as Rav Shaul notes, \u201cLet the same mind be in you that was in Messiah Yeshua.\u201d This mind places obedience to God ahead of the inheritance from God. It recognizes that even the true blessings from God\u2014such as the Israelites\u2019 inheritance of the Land\u2014can keep us from the simple obedience that God requires. To accomplish this purpose requires dispossession more often than possession.
\nWe might paraphrase Hillel: \u201cThe more stuff we possess, the more stuff possesses us.\u201d Liberation comes as we realize that life in this age is a holding and not a possession. As we possess nothing in this world, the Lord takes possession of us for the world to come.<\/p>\n
For the journey: All that I have is on loan from God, the one who owns it all. When I forget this, it brings anxiety, greed, and distraction from what matters most. Have I allowed my possessions to take possession of me?<\/p>\n
\u05d1\u05de\u05e8\u05d1\u05e8<\/p>\n
THE BOOK OF NUMBERS<\/p>\n
The Hebrew title of Numbers\u2014\u05d1\u05de\u05d3\u05d1\u05e8 (B\u2019midbar) or \u201cin the wilderness\u201d\u2014says it all. The book opens in the wilderness of Sinai \u201con the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt\u2026\u201d (Num. 1:1), or less than a year after the Israelites arrived at Sinai (Exod. 19:1). It concludes in the wilderness, not at the foot of Mount Sinai, but \u201cin the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho\u201d (Num. 36:13). Most of the forty-year period of desert wanderings, plus the reasons for it, are comprised within the book of Numbers.
\nWilderness is not just the setting of Numbers, but one of its dominant themes. The wilderness and its challenges shape Israel into the holy nation God has called it to be. The forty years of wandering seem to be a tragic delay, the result of distrust in God\u2019s promise to give Israel the land of Canaan. But the same forty years prepare Israel to take the land. The desert, which seems to be a place of exile and fruitlessness, is also a place of encounter with God.
\nThe Hebrew text provides a remez, or hint, of this remarkable quality. Wilderness is midbar, or \u05de\u05d3\u05d1\u05e8 in Hebrew. We can detect within this word another Hebrew word, davar, or \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8, which means \u201cword.\u201d In many Hebrew words, the prefix mem, or \u05de, signifies location. For example, the root for \u201cdwell\u201d is shachan or \u05e9\u05db\u05df. The word for place of dwelling is mishkan, \u05de\u05e9\u05db\u05df, the term used for the tabernacle in the wilderness. Lamp is ner, \u05e0\u05e8; the place of lamps is menorah, \u05de\u05e0\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4, the lampstand within the tabernacle.
\nThis pattern in the Hebrew language allows us to make an imaginative word study. Desert, midbar, is the place of the word, davar\u2014the place of revelation. Accordingly, B\u2019midbar, \u201cin the wilderness,\u201d continues the story of God\u2019s self-revelation that began in Genesis. It also records, with realism and honesty, Israel\u2019s repeated failure to respond to that self-revelation, a failure that seems to threaten the heart of the divine plan. In the end, however, the plan goes forward and a new generation prepares to enter the Promised Land.
\nThis story unfolds in Numbers in three major sections.<\/p>\n
\u2022 1:1\u201310:10. Here we read of the great census that gives the book its name in English, which also makes it seem rather unapproachable to many readers. The census takes up the first four chapters, and then is followed after a break by a repetitious list of the offerings of the tribes that have been counted. This seems tedious to a modern reader, but it conveys a sense of pageantry and splendor as Israel is about to begin its journey from Sinai to the Promised Land.<\/p>\n
\u2022 10:11\u201319:22. This section picks up the itinerary suspended after Exodus 19, when Israel arrived at Sinai. Wilderness is the place of testing and of revelation because it is also the terrain of journeying. The journey in the wilderness provides a metaphor that prepares us for the warnings of Exile that become dominant in the next book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, and the writings of the Prophets that follow.<\/p>\n
\u2022 20:1\u201336:13. In chapter 20, Miriam and Aaron die, signifying that a new generation has arisen, the generation that will finally enter the Promised Land. In this section, the Israelites engage in their first battles, defeating the kings Og and Sihon, who become symbols of the conquest to come. These accounts are followed by the story of Balaam, sent to curse Israel, who instead provides a blessing. After he and his Midianite handlers are defeated, Israel prepares to cross the Jordan.<\/p>\n
This narrative is interspersed with sections of commandments and judgments that will guide Israel\u2019s future in the Promised Land. \u201cThese are the commandments and the judgments which the LORD commanded the children of Israel by the hand of Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho\u201d (Num. 36:13). Here, at the eastern bank of the Jordan, Israel is poised to fulfill the plan God set in motion when he called to Moses from the Burning Bush to deliver his people from Egypt. Numbers reminds us that at the heart of this plan is davar, the word, God revealing himself to his people Israel and, through them, to the world.<\/p>\n
WILDERNESS OF REVELATION
\nParashat B\u2019midbar, Numbers 1:1\u20134:20<\/p>\n
All those who freely devote themselves to His truth shall bring all their knowledge, powers, and possessions into the Community of God, that they may purify their knowledge in the truth of God\u2019s precepts and order their powers according to His ways of perfection and all their possessions according to His righteous counsel. (From the Dead Sea Scrolls)<\/p>\n
When I am in Israel, I love to visit the Dead Sea and surrounding area. It is desolate but beautiful at the same time\u2014a refuge from the hectic and crowded streets of Jerusalem.
\nOne of the sites by the Dead Sea is Qumran, the ruins of a large communal center connected with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in a number of nearby caves. These scrolls are one of the greatest archaeological finds of the twentieth century, containing the earliest manuscripts that we possess of most of the Hebrew Scriptures, plus numerous other writings from the centuries just before the coming of Messiah. From scrolls like \u201cThe Community Rule\u201d quoted above, we also learn about the communal life of Qumran, where pious Jews fled from the growing corruption of Jerusalem to seek God in the desert beginning in the second century BCE.
\nYeshua began his ministry in this same region, where Yochanan (John) appeared as \u201ca voice crying in the wilderness\u201d (Isa. 40:3), a favorite phrase of the Qumran sect. He called Israel to turn away from sin, turn back to God, and be immersed in the waters of the Jordan. All the people of Judah and Jerusalem went out to the wilderness in response to Yochanan\u2019s preaching, and there Yeshua appeared to receive immersion and initiate his ministry.
\nThe area around Qumran reminds us of \u201cthe great and awesome desert, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water\u201d (Deut. 8:15). Wilderness holds a special place in the continuing story of Creation and renewal that began in the book of Genesis. Indeed, Mark\u2019s account of the life of Messiah links the wilderness, which seems so uninhabitable, with the Garden of Eden, the site of humankind\u2019s first habitation. After Yeshua\u2019s immersion at the hand of Yochanan, we read:<\/p>\n
Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him. (Mark 1:12\u201313)<\/p>\n
As we noted in Parashat Mishpatim, the wording here is significant. In the other gospels, Yeshua is \u201cled\u201d by the Spirit into the wilderness; only in Mark is he \u201cdriven out.\u201d This phrase echoes the language of Genesis 3, in which Adam and Eve are \u201cdriven out\u201d of the Garden after their great transgression. Another element unique to Mark is his mention of the \u201cwild beasts.\u201d Perhaps this is a reminder of Adam\u2019s naming of the beasts in Genesis 2, his first activity within the Garden of Eden. And both accounts, of course, center on temptation, the temptation that defeats Adam and Eve, but which Messiah overcomes.
\nSo, we can read the temptation of Messiah in Mark as a reversal of the sin of Adam and Eve. Adam is in the Garden, he names the beasts, he is tempted and defeated, and then he is driven out. In reverse order, Yeshua is driven out into the wilderness, then he is tempted and victorious, then he is with the beasts, and the angels minister to him, in contrast with the angelic cherubim that guard the way back into the Garden from Adam and Eve.
\nThe wilderness in Mark is the place of restoration. It seems to be the opposite of Eden, but paradoxically becomes Eden-like as the place of restored fellowship with God. This vision of the wilderness led some Jews of the second Temple period out to the desert to find God\u2019s \u201cways of perfection and \u2026 righteous counsel,\u201d as the Dead Sea Scrolls stated.
\nThe wilderness is barren and remote, but there\u2014because of these very qualities\u2014we can hear God\u2019s word. Thus, we come to the opening words of Numbers or B\u2019midbar. \u201cAnd the LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai\u201d (Num. 1:1, emphasis added).
\nIn the wilderness God speaks. Torah is teaching us that it is in the places of difficulty, challenge, and temptation that we find God. Adam and Eve lost God in a garden, but Yeshua regained God in the wilderness. Likewise, in our own lives, the difficulties that we face can become the source of new understanding and communion with God.
\nBut the book of B\u2019midbar reveals that the wilderness is also a place of complaining, rebellion, and failure. Life\u2019s difficulties can bring us into an encounter with God, but they can also embitter and destroy us.
\nB\u2019midbar reveals some of Israel\u2019s greatest failures. The opening chapters describe the census that Moses takes at God\u2019s command as part of the military preparation to take the Promised Land. Not long after the census, Moses\u2019 brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, rebel against him. Then, scouts sent out to assess the Land come back with an evil report, leading the people to rebel against God\u2019s plan of conquest. Shortly after the rebellion the scouts set in motion, a Levite named Korach leads another, massive rebellion that brings great destruction upon the tribes of Israel. Finally, before the book closes, Moses himself will rebel and lose his right to enter the Promised Land. Interspersed among these low points of disobedience are numerous complaints and murmurings among the children of Israel.
\nThe same geography can be the place of revelation or rebellion. What makes the difference? Our response. The drama of Numbers turns on whether the Israelites in their desert wanderings will trust the Lord who has revealed himself to be so trustworthy, or will let the desert wanderings push them into complaining and disobedience.
\nOur greatest challenges in life can lead us into either revelation or rebellion. We can emerge from the wilderness experience as better and stronger people, or embittered and defeated. What makes the difference? Our response. As we trust in the God who reveals himself as trustworthy throughout the Torah, our wilderness becomes a place of encounter with him.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Difficulties and disappointments in life can draw us into greater understanding of God and his ways\u2014or they can drive us away from God altogether. It all depends on our response. How am I responding to the tough, frustrating situations that are in my life right now, and how will I respond to difficulties in the next few days or months?<\/p>\n
A MERCIFUL CURSE
\nParashat Naso, Numbers 4:21\u20137:89<\/p>\n
A king had some empty goblets. He said: \u201cIf I put hot water in them, they will burst. If I put cold water in, they will crack.\u201d So the king mixed cold and hot water together and poured it in, and the goblets were uninjured.
\nEven so, God said, \u201cIf I create the world with the attribute of mercy alone, sin will multiply; if I create it with the attribute of justice alone, how can it endure? So I will create it with both, and thus it will endure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The longing for justice seems to be part of our human nature. We yearn to see the standards of right and wrong enforced in the world around us, and yet are disappointed more often than not. When the wicked escape punishment, it troubles us almost as much as when the innocent suffer.
\nThis longing for justice lies at the root of the ordinance of the unfaithful wife in Parashat Naso. It not only answers the suspicions of a jealous husband, but it also restores justice to the community.<\/p>\n
If any man\u2019s wife goes astray and behaves unfaithfully toward him and a man lies with her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and it is concealed that she has defiled herself, and there was no witness against her, nor was she caught\u2014if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he becomes jealous of his wife, who has defiled herself; or if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he becomes jealous of his wife, although she has not defiled herself\u2014then the man shall bring his wife to the priest. (Num. 5:12\u201315a)<\/p>\n
The priest takes some of the dust from the floor of the tabernacle, mixes it with holy water in an earthen vessel to make \u201cbitter water\u201d (Num. 5:18). He gives it to the alleged adulteress declaring, \u2018 \u201cMay this water that causes the curse go into your stomach, and make your belly swell and your thigh rot.\u2019 Then the woman shall say, \u2018Amen, so be it.\u2019 Then the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall scrape them off into the bitter water\u201d (Num. 5:22\u201323). If the woman is guilty, the curse will enter her with the water, but if she is innocent, she will remain unharmed.
\nRamban notes the miraculous element in this ordinance:<\/p>\n
Now there is nothing amongst all the ordinances of the Torah which depends upon a miracle, except for this matter, which is a permanent wonder and miracle that will happen in Israel, when the majority of the people live in accordance with the Will of G-d \u2026 so that they are worthy that the Divine Presence dwell among them.<\/p>\n
Normally justice depends on the wisdom of human judges. But no one can know whether the accused woman is guilty or innocent. Her husband has become infected by \u201cthe spirit of jealousy.\u201d Something must be done to restore justice, and God makes a special provision. Ramban notes that the miraculous nature of this ordinance reflects the unique condition of Israel at the time, newly delivered from bondage and living in the presence of the Shechinah, the glory-cloud of God. Later, as the spiritual condition of Israel declined and adultery became more widespread, the Talmud says, the bitter water ceased to be effective (Sotah 47b). But in better days, God intervenes to restore justice.
\nWe saw a similar intervention in the case of Nadab and Abihu, who were struck down by a fire from the Lord\u2019s presence because they offered \u201cstrange fire\u201d (Lev. 10), and we will see it again shortly in the rebellion of Korach (Num. 16). Centuries later, the early Messianic community experiences divine intervention in the judgment of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). In each of these cases, God acts supernaturally to restore justice because he is so present within the community that he cannot allow disorder to remain. Later, as sin increases, God ceases to intervene so directly.
\nGod\u2019s miraculous intervention in the ordinance of the accused woman does not come directly, however, but at the hands of the priest, who is empowered to call down a curse upon the guilty. In contrast, in the next chapter, God appoints this same priest as the agent of blessing.<\/p>\n
Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, \u201cThis is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them:
\n\u2018The LORD bless you and keep you;
\nThe LORD make His face shine upon you,
\nAnd be gracious to you;
\nThe LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
\nAnd give you peace.\u201d \u2019 (Num. 6:24\u201326)<\/p>\n
The same priests who are the instruments of cursing pronounce the blessing. Both judgment and blessing can be signs of God\u2019s presence among his people.
\nOnce some scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, \u201cin the very act,\u201d to Yeshua, saying: \u201cNow Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?\u201d (John 8:5). Instead of answering, Yeshua wrote in the dirt, perhaps as a reminder of the dust stirred into the bitter water of Numbers 5. Then he said, \u201cHe who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first\u201d (John 8:7). At this word, the woman\u2019s accusers slipped off one by one, and the woman was not condemned. Where sin is abundant, God may delay his judgment. Instead, he provides a time of forgiveness so that the holiness of the community can be reestablished.
\nComplete justice awaits the Age to Come when the purity and holiness of Creation are fulfilled. In the meantime, the ordinance of bitter water reminds us of the pervasiveness of sin, which requires that justice be tempered with mercy. God mixes mercy with judgment so the world may endure. No priest in Israel has employed the bitter water for nearly two thousand years, but the descendants of Aaron continue to pronounce the blessing of Numbers 6:24\u201326 to this day. We may wonder why the wicked go unpunished, but we must thank God that his mercy prevails over judgment.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Yeshua said, \u201cBlessed are the merciful for they shall see God.\u201d Am I merciful? How often have I longed for God\u2019s justice without realizing that I myself was in need of mercy?<\/p>\n
GUIDE AND GLORY-CLOUD
\nParashat B\u2019ha\u2018alotkha, Numbers 8:1\u201312:16<\/p>\n
In the traditional morning service, before the Torah scroll is removed from the ark and carried out among the congregation, the worship leader calls out, \u201cVay\u2019hi binsoa ha\u2019aron, vayomer Moshe\u2014And it came to pass, whenever the ark went forward, that Moses would say: \u2018Arise, O LORD! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You\u2019 \u201d (Num. 10:35).
\nThe traditional Torah service reenacts the scene at Mount Sinai, when all Israel stood before the mountain to receive the word of the Lord from the hand of Moses. As the Torah scroll is carried through the congregation, we touch it with a prayer book, or the fringe of the prayer shawl, and then touch that object to our lips. Through this ancient custom, we repeat the words that our ancestors spoke when the Torah was first brought down from the mountain and offered to them: \u201cAll that the Lord has said, we will do\u201d (Exod. 24:17).
\nThe words from Numbers 10 that introduce the Torah service were first spoken as the Israelites prepared to depart from Mount Sinai and begin the final stages of the journey to the Promised Land. Since the middle of the book of Exodus, they have been encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai, receiving the instructions of Torah, especially those for building the tabernacle and establishing the priesthood and sacrifices. There, the Israelites build the tabernacle, inaugurate the sacrifices, and receive further instructions in the life of the holy community. All of this takes us through the rest of Exodus, all of Leviticus, and well into the book of Numbers.
\nFinally, in Numbers 10, Israel prepares to move on. The book opened with the census of Israel\u2019s fighting men because Israel is about to come into contact with its enemies, as Moses says, \u201cRise up, O LORD! Let your enemies be scattered.\u201d Hence, just as the Torah service reenacts the divine encounter at Mount Sinai, so it anticipates the day when the Torah will go forth throughout the world. Indeed, after we chant the line from Numbers beginning, \u201cArise, O LORD \u2026\u201d we recite Isaiah 2:3, \u201cFor from Mount Zion will go forth the Torah, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.\u201d The ark of God goes before Israel, not just to push back the enemy tribes in the desert, but also to further the process of world redemption, which reaches fulfillment in the return of Messiah Yeshua to rule over all nations.
\nNumbers 10:35\u201336 captures a prophetic moment. This may explain why an inverted form of the Hebrew letter nun brackets these verses in the Torah scroll (as reproduced in JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh).<\/p>\n
\u05d4\u05b7\u05bd\u05de\u05b7\u05bc\u05d7\u05b2\u05e0\u05b6\u05bd\u05d4\u05c3 \u05c6* \u05e1
\n\u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05b4\u059b\u05d9 \u05d1\u05b4\u05bc\u05e0\u05b0\u05e1\u05b9\u05a5\u05e2\u05b7 \u05d4\u05b8\u05d0\u05b8\u05e8\u05b9\u0596\u05df \u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b9\u05bc\u05a3\u05d0\u05de\u05b6\u05e8 \u05de\u05b9\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u0591\u05d435
\n\u05e7\u05d5\u05bc\u05de\u05b8\u05a3\u05d4 \u05c0 \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b8\u05c4\u05d4
\n\u05d5\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05e4\u05bb\u05a8\u05e6\u05d5\u05bc\u0599 \u05d0\u05b9\u05bd\u05d9\u05b0\u05d1\u05b6\u0594\u05d9\u05da\u05b8
\n\u05d5\u05b0\u05d9\u05b8\u05e0\u05bb\u05a5\u05e1\u05d5\u05bc \u05de\u05b0\u05e9\u05b7\u05c2\u05e0\u05b0\u05d0\u05b6\u0596\u05d9\u05da\u05b8 \u05de\u05b4\u05e4\u05b8\u05bc\u05e0\u05b6\u05bd\u05d9\u05da\u05b8
\n\u05d5\u05d1\u05e0\u05d7\u05d4 \u05d5\u05bc\u05d1\u05b0\u05e0\u05bb\u05d7\u0596\u05d5\u05b9 \u05d9\u05b9\u05d0\u05de\u05b7\u0591\u05e836
\n\u05e9\u05c1\u05d5\u05bc\u05d1\u05b8\u05a5\u05d4 \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b8\u0594\u05d4
\n\u05e8\u05b4\u05bd\u05d1\u05b0\u05d1\u0596\u05d5\u05d5\u05b9\u05d7 \u05d0\u05b7\u05dc\u05b0\u05e4\u05b5\u05a5\u05d9 \u05d9\u05b4\u05e9\u05b0\u05c2\u05e8\u05b8\u05d0\u05b5\u05bd\u05dc\u05c3 \u05c6\u0597* \u05e4<\/p>\n
The commentators provide various explanations for this ancient, but unusual, feature of the Torah scroll. It is clear, however, that these verses mark a major turning point in the narrative flow. Moses pronounces these words as the ark goes forth to launch a completely new phase in Israel\u2019s journey, which will end only with the fulfillment of God\u2019s purposes for all humankind.
\nIt seems strange, then, to remember that just a few verses earlier Moses had asked his father-in-law, Hobab (appearing in earlier passages as Jethro), to continue to guide the Israelites: \u201cSo Moses said, \u2018Please do not leave, in as much as you know how we are to camp in the wilderness, and you can be our eyes\u2019 \u201d (Num. 10:31).
\nWhy does Moses ask Hobab to guide them, when the LORD himself is about to go before them as guide? \u201cThe ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them for the three days\u2019 journey, to search out a resting place for them. And the cloud of the Lord was above them by day when they went out from the camp\u201d (Num. 10:33\u201334). It is this very reality that Moses invokes when he says, \u201cArise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered.\u201d
\nSome interpreters suggest that Moses\u2019 words to his father-in-law should be translated in the past tense: \u201cSo Moses said, \u2018Please do not leave, inasmuch as you have known how we are to camp in the wilderness, and you have been our eyes\u2019 \u201d (Num. 10:31). Perhaps he is not saying that the Israelites still need him as a guide, now that the ark goes before them, but simply that they want him to travel with them in honor of his past contributions.
\nThe text, however, is more straightforward. The Israelites will follow the glory-cloud of God, and they will also follow Hobab, who has already proven himself a reliable guide. The Israelites do not choose between the guidance of God\u2019s cloud and the guidance of Moses\u2019 father-in-law. Rather, God guides his people through both means, acting together.
\nWe see something similar in the Book of Ruth, read during Shavuot, not long before we read this parashah in the synagogue. Boaz employs a striking metaphor in his words to Ruth, \u201cThe LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge\u201d (Ruth 2:12). The LORD is like a protecting eagle, sheltering its offspring under mighty, outstretched wings. Later, when Ruth approaches Boaz for help, she uses the same metaphor: \u201cI am Ruth, your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative\u201d (Ruth 3:9, emphasis added). Does Ruth come under the wing of the LORD, or under the wing of Boaz? But, of course, it is not an either\/or situation. Ruth seeks refuge in the Lord, and the Lord brings her to Boaz, who will provide refuge. In a similar way, the Lord guides the Israelites and brings Hobab into the camp of Israel to be their eyes.
\nIn the divine program of world redemption, everything depends on God\u2019s mercy and grace, but human beings have a genuine part to play. As Paul writes, \u201cFor we are of God\u2019s making, created in union with the Messiah Yeshua for a life of good actions already prepared by God for us to do\u201d (Eph. 2:10, CJB). We are not passive observers, simply waiting for God to act, but are \u201ccreated for good works.\u201d We even have a share in the plan of world redemption, the Word of God going out to all the world as pictured in the Torah service. Yet we cannot perform these works apart from him. Indeed, the Lord gives us genuine responsibility in his plan, so that we discover that we cannot fulfill this responsibility without his help. In the divine-human partnership of world redemption, we discover how dependent we are upon God.<\/p>\n
For the journey: If I take someone under my wing, who knows whether he or she has really come under the wings of the Lord God of Israel? I will be on the watch for real-life opportunities to cooperate with God\u2019s redemptive purposes.<\/p>\n
CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN
\nParashat Shlach L\u2019kha, Numbers 13:1\u201315:41<\/p>\n
Years ago, when I worked as a salesman, our manager gave everyone a copy of the book Dress for Success. This was more than a fashion book. Rather, it was a study of how different styles and colors influenced one\u2019s effectiveness. In one test, a man wearing a beige raincoat asked people passing by for handouts and collected a tidy sum. Later he did the same in a gray raincoat and came up empty-handed. The book abounds with examples like this. Apparently, at least on a human level, clothes do make the man.
\nThe Torah turns this principle around\u2014clothing cannot make us something we are not, but it can remind us what we are supposed to be. Moses instructs the Israelites \u201cto make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them\u201d (Num. 15:38\u201339).
\n\u201cTassel\u201d is tzitzit in Hebrew, and such tassels are worn by Jewish men to this day. Traditional Jews wear a four-cornered undergarment with tassels that either appear on the outside of their pants, hanging down from the waist, or remain under the outer clothing, out of sight. The traditional prayer shawl, or tallit, has a tzitzit at each corner, thus providing another way to fulfill the commandment.
\nIn the ancient world, nobles wore garments with ornate hems as a sign of their status. \u201cThe more important the individual, the more elaborate the embroidery of his hem. Its significance lies not in its artistry but in its symbolism as an extension of its owner\u2019s person and authority.\u201d Thus, a husband would divorce his wife by cutting off the hem of her garment. A seer in ancient Mari would send his report to the king and include a lock of his hair and a portion of his hem to attest its authenticity. From this we understand the significance of David\u2019s cutting a piece of the hem off the robe of Saul, why David\u2019s heart troubled him after he did so, and why Saul took it as a sign that David would succeed him as king (1 Sam. 14:6, 20). Likewise, we see more clearly why a woman in need of healing grabbed the hem of Yeshua\u2019s garment (Matt. 9:20).
\n\u201cThus the significance of the tzitzit lies in this: It was worn by those who counted; it was the identification tag of nobility.\u201d In Israel, the Torah decrees, it is not only the nobles, but every Israelite who is to wear such fringes on their garments.
\nThe requirement to wear a thread of blue among the other threads of the tzitzit heightens its noble quality. Blue is the color of nobility, largely because of the cost of the dye in the ancient world. Indeed, the dye was so costly that the rabbis of the Talmudic era decreed that the blue thread was no longer to be worn, and the fringe should be white, so that all Jewish men would enjoy equal dignity. Nevertheless, the original significance remains. Blue is the color of royalty, and therefore the color of the priestly garments and the tabernacle itself. The single blue thread of the tzitzit reflects the single blue thread that held the golden head plate of the High Priest, on which were inscribed the words kodesh l\u2019Adonai, \u201cHoly to the LORD\u201d (Exod. 28:36). Just as the priestly garment was made of both linen and woolen strands\u2014a combination forbidden to the ordinal y Israelites\u2014so the early rabbis ordained that the tzitzit contain both white linen and blue woolen strands. \u201cThus the tzitzit, according to the rabbis, are modeled after a priestly garment that is taboo for the rest of Israel!\u201d
\nIt is clear, then, that the tzitzit not only reminds the Israelites to obey the commandments, but it also reveals that they receive these commandments as a holy priesthood. Obedience is not just a way to keep the Israelites in line. Rather, it expresses the holiness of their calling and the purpose of their redemption from Egypt. Hence, the Lord concludes the instruction of the tzitzit with the words, \u201cI am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD your God\u201d (Num. 15:41).
\nThis is indeed a lofty calling. Yet, even more striking is its position in the text of Numbers. We are in Parashat Shlach L\u2019kha, which opens with Moses sending twelve men, one from each tribe, to scout out the Land of Israel in preparation for its conquest The story ends, of course, in disaster. Ten of the twelve scouts bring back an evil report. Only Joshua and Caleb encourage the people to take the Land. The people believe the majority, refuse to take the La id as God has commanded, and end up being condemned to perish in the wilderness. This incident is not the first trial Moses faces in the book of Numbers. In the chapter before we learned of the complaints of his own siblings, Aaron and Miriam, and the Lord\u2019s chastisement upon Miriam. Finally, just before the ordinance of the tzitzit, we hear of a man who breaks the Shabbat and is condemned to be stoned to death.
\nAfter the ordinance is given, things do not improve at all. The following chapter tells of the rebellion of Korach, who joins with Dathan, Abiram, and others to challenge the authority of Moses and Aaron. The Lord puts down this rebellion in the most drastic way, with the earth swallowing up Korach and his family, and fire from heaven striking down 250 other rebels.
\nThe way Numbers tells the story makes it clear that when the Lord clothes the Israelites as priests, he does so fully knowing their tendency to rebel. The holy garment is not a reward for faithfulness because they have hardly been faithful. Instead, the tzitzit expresses the faithfulness of God. By it, he calls into being a holy priesthood out of the unqualified and unworthy.
\nIs it possible that God still views Israel as a holy priesthood, despite its corporate failure to acknowledge Yeshua as Lord and Messiah, and still has a holy destination in mind for the whole people? As Paul reminded the Gentiles who believed in Yeshua, \u201cConcerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable\u201d (Rom. 11:28\u201329).
\nClothes make the man. The tzitzit not only reminds Israel of the irrevocable commandments of the Lord, but of their irrevocable calling as a royal priesthood and a holy nation.
\nIn our day, we are seeing a great move of reconciliation between Christians and Jews. Despite the Jewish \u201cno\u201d to Yeshua, God still has a glorious plan for them, a plan that will ultimately be fulfilled in this same Yeshua. As the tzitzit is a reminder to Israel of their holy calling, so nay it be a reminder to Christians, after centuries of anti-Jewish attitudes and actions, to love and honor the Jewish people.<\/p>\n
For the journey: God has an unchangeable purpose that brings together Jews and Christians. There are visible reminders of this purpose in the world around me. How might I display such a reminder, like the tzitzit, in my own life?<\/p>\n
LAND OF MILK AND HONEY
\nParashat Korach, Numbers 16:1\u201318:32<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we want any more Kings \u2026 no more than we want any Aslans. We\u2019re going to look after ourselves from now on and touch our caps to nobody. See?\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d said the other Dwarfs. \u201cWe\u2019re on our own now. No more Aslan, no more Kings, no more silly stories about other worlds. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.\u201d And they began to fall into their places and to get ready for marching back to wherever they had come from.<\/p>\n
In the C.S. Lewis classic The Last Battle, Aslan the lion is the Messiah figure. A false messiah disguised as Aslan appears and misleads the people, including a band of Dwarfs whom he has taken captive. The followers of the true Aslan, led by King Tirian, arise, overturn the false messiah, and liberate the Dwarfs. They expect the Dwarfs to rejoice and welcome Aslan\u2019s imminent return, but the Dwarfs reject both the King and Aslan. From now on, \u201cthe Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.\u201d
\nParashat Korach records a similar disillusionment among the Israelites. They grow weary of wandering in the wilderness, living off manna and miraculous supplies of water, and begin to long for the well-watered bounty of Egypt. \u201cWe remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!\u201d (Num. 11:5\u20136).
\nOne of the Levites, Korach, leads a rebellion that takes this complaining even further, even calling Egypt, instead of Cam .an, the \u201cland of milk and honey\u201d (Num. 16:13). With this phrase, they reveal the wicked heart of their rebellion and call down the unprecedented divine judgment that will end it.
\nWe live in an era that exhorts us\u2014in the words of a popular bumper sticker\u2014to \u201cQuestion Authority.\u201d The American Revolution gave birth to a great nation through resistance to authority, which seems in retrospect to have been principled and noble. Yet such resistance is risky. It can easily lead to anarchy and the reaction that inevitably follows, as evidenced by the French Revolution, which came just a few years after the American, and gave birth to the Reign of Terror and the career of Napoleon.
\nQuestion authority, perhaps, but beware of the rebellion of Korach, which would overturn all authority. Korach\u2019s followers equate Egypt with the Promised Land and accuse Moses, God\u2019s appointed leader, of mocking them when he speaks of another Promised and.<\/p>\n
Not only have you perpetrated evil against us by taking us out of a land flowing with milk and honey and bringing us into the wilderness, but you also jest with us\u2014for you have not brought us to the Land into which you said you would bring us and still you speak to us as though you have given us \u201can inheritance of fields and vineyards,\u201d by commanding us those commandments which are connected only to the Land \u2026 as though it was already ours and we have fields and vineyards in it!<\/p>\n
Korach\u2019s followers not only question the authority of Moses, but they turn all authority on its head. They see Moses, the self-sacrificing leader, as Moses the self-serving leader, who even mocks those who follow him. The real Promised Land is no longer the place to which Moses is leading them, but Egypt, the place of servitude from which they had fled, It was all a big mistake, and the best course is to go back.
\nThe Last Battle pictures the ultimate rebellion led by the false messiah at the end of the age (Rev. 13), which leads to the rejection of al. authority. Likewise, Korach\u2019s rebellion does not simply propose to replace one authority structure with another, which at times may be a legitimate course of action. Instead, it questions authority altogether, even God\u2019s authority, and refuses to live under any of it. As a result, it undermines the divine project launched in Genesis of establishing the order and blessing of Creation over all the earth. In the end, the Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs and no one else.
\nWhen Moses speaks of the Promised Land in the book of Deuteronomy, he uses language that evokes the abundance of Creation and Eden before the exile of Adam and Eve:<\/p>\n
For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a la id in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing. (Deut. 8:7\u20139)<\/p>\n
By delivering Israel from Egypt and giving them the Torah, the Lord is raising up Israel as a restored humanity, to dwell in the Eden of the Promised Land and bear the divine image on behalf of the rest of humankind. Korach sees all this as a fairy tale and yearns instead for the security and control of life in Egypt.
\nNow we can understand why God\u2019s judgment upon Korach is so harsh.<\/p>\n
Now it came to pass \u2026 that the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods. So they and all those with them went down alive into the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly. (Num. 16:31\u201333)<\/p>\n
The very earth must swallow up Korach because his rebellion is infectious. It would undermine the entire purpose of the Exodus from Egypt.
\nIn the end, however, God desires to remind the Israelites; that his purpose is one of blessing and life, even though his judgment against the rebels has been so severe. He directs the Israelites to gather twelve rods, one representing each tribe, and place them within the tabernacle. In the morning, they discover that Aaron\u2019s rod has come to life and produced blossoms and buds and ripe almonds (Num. 17:23), thus vindicating the leadership of Moses and Aaron. God\u2019s final answer to rebellion is not suppression, but abundant life that only he can bring forth, life which only the obedient can experience.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Authority needs to be exercised with humility and the fear of God. But rejection of authority can lead to mistaking Egypt for the Promised Land. Have I in any way embraced the anti-authority attitude that is so prevalent in our day?<\/p>\n
WATER FROM THE ROCK
\nParashat Hakkat, Numbers 19:1\u201322:1<\/p>\n
Surely it was taught: Ten things were created on the eve of the [first] Sabbath at twilight. These are they: the well, the manna, the rainbow, the writing and the writing instruments, the Tables, the sepulcher of Moses, the cave in which Moses and Elijah stood, the opening of the ass\u2019s mouth, and the opening of the earth\u2019s mouth to swallow up the wicked.<\/p>\n
On a recent trip to Israel, our tour group was driving north along the western shore of the Dead Sea. Our guide pointed to the mountains of Moab across the sea in present-day Jordan. Through the haze, we could see Pisgah, the high point to which the Lord directed Moses in Deuteronomy 3:27: \u201cGo up to the top of Pisgah, and lift your eyes toward the west, the north, the south, and the east; behold it with your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan.\u201d There, Moses begged the Lord for the chance to set foot in the land that had been the focus of his hopes and yearnings for the past forty years, but it was not to be. In an unknown and unmarked spot on that mountain, Moses lies buried to this day. Here is \u201cthe sepulcher of Moses \u2026 created on the eve of the first Sabbath.\u201d
\nThis scene is sadly ironic. The great deliverer of his people has no share in the final stage of their deliverance. After bearing with the people for so long in their trials, he cannot partake of their joy with them. Ironic though it is, the scene is most fitting. Moses has been the mediator for Israel, representing the people before God in all their sins and shortcomings. It is fitting that he remain with his own generation, even in exile. Perhaps the Torah is anticipating here that much of Israel\u2019s history will be experienced outside the Promised Land. Moses our teacher dies in exile to identify not only with the generation that he led out of Egypt, but also with countless generations of Jews who have died in exile. His teachings guide us, whether in the Land or in dispersion.
\nNevertheless, the question remains, why does God treat Moses so harshly? The answer lies in a familiar story in this week\u2019s parashah.
\nThe people have arrived at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin only to discover that there is no water. They raise their voices in complaint against Moses, and the Lord instructs him: \u201cTake the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals\u201d (Num. 20:8).
\nMoses and Aaron, however, deviate from this instruction, with terrible consequences:<\/p>\n
And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, \u201cHear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?\u201d Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank. Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, \u201cBecause you did not believe me, to hallow me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the and which I have given them.\u201d (Num. 20:10\u201312)<\/p>\n
Now we know why Moses must die on the far side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab.
\nThe passage from the Talmud cited above provides further insight. The \u201cwell \u2026 created on the eve of the first Sabbath\u201d is the rock that Moses struck. We first read of it in Exodus 17, when the previous generation of Israelites arrived at a waterless place\u2014perhaps the very same place as in Numbers 20\u2014and the Lord supplied them with water from the rock. From that time on, despite all their wanderings and difficulties, the Israelites always had a supply of water \u2026 until now.
\nA midrash portrays this rock following the children of Israel in all their wanderings, a miraculous well created from the very beginning to supply them with water. One variation of the story links this miraculous supply to Miriam. In Exodus 15, she is the prophetess who leads the daughters of Israel in dance and exalted praise before the lord. In her honor, the Lord supplies water to Israel in Exodus 17. But when the Israelites arrive at Kadesh in Numbers 20, Miriam dies and the water ceases.
\nApparently, a form of this midrash was current when Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians:<\/p>\n
For, brothers, I don\u2019t want you to miss the significance of what happened to our fathers. All of them were guided by the pillar of cloud, and they all passed through the sea, and in connection with the cloud and with the sea they all immersed themselves into Moses, also they all ate the same food from the Spirit, and they all drank the same drink from the Spirit\u2014for they drank from a Spirit-sent Rock which followed them, and that Rock was the Messiah. (1 Cor. 10:1\u20134, CJB)<\/p>\n
The rock, then, is created from the very beginning as an emblem of God\u2019s gracious and unlimited supply. Ultimately, the supply of water does not depend on Miriam, but on God\u2019s overflowing goodness. The people in their complaining and unbelief may be unworthy, but the Lord still intends to provide life-giving water. Moses needs only to speak to the rock and waters will come forth. Paul is reading the story well when he pictures the rock as Messiah, through whom God supplies the life-giving Spirit without measure even to the undeserving.
\nThrough his subtle disobedience, however, Moses misrepresent; God\u2019s gracious intentions toward Israel. Perhaps he is thinking of their entire history of complaint, and God\u2019s earlier acts of judgment against them. Perhaps Moses pictures waters gushing forth from the rock to sweep away the worst complainers, just as the Lord had earlier provided so much quail meat to those who complained about food that they choked upon it (Num. 11).
\nHere is a lesson for us. The Lord says to Moses, \u201cBecause you did not believe me, to hallow me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.\u201d Certainly, Moses believed in the Lord, and believed his word. At this point, however, he could not believe his kindness toward his people. Where God intended mercy, Moses believed in judgment and wrath.
\nGod says to Moses, \u201cYou did not make me holy in their sight\u201d We might imagine holiness as a pure and uncompromising divine standard. But the Lord wanted to display his holiness by being kind to undeserving Israel. Let us beware of misrepresenting God, as Moses did, by making him the mouthpiece of our own self-righteousness.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Self-righteousness is the pitfall of religious folk, which Yeshua spoke against constantly. We appoint ourselves the upholders of righteousness and truth, and enforce them at times with a harshness that far exceeds the Lord\u2019s. How can we embrace both God\u2019s righteousness and his grace at the same time?<\/p>\n
THE MEEK AND THE MIGHTY
\nParashat Balak, Numbers 22:2\u201325:9<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be so humble; you\u2019re not that great. (Golda Meir)<\/p>\n
Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth. (Num. 12:3)<\/p>\n
We sometimes joke about this verse declaring the humility of Moses, because Moses is the one who wrote it. He seems like the man who received the medal for humility, only to have it taken away because he wore it! But no, the humility of which Scripture speaks is not that sort of false modesty, which Golda Meir, the iron lady of Israeli politics in the early decades of the Jewish state, also lampooned. Rather, true humility means knowing who we are in relationship to the Almighty.
\nMoses displays such humility when he faces criticism from his own siblings, Aaron and Miriam. He says nothing when they issue their challenge, \u201cHas the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?\u201d (Num. 12:2). He does nothing to vindicate himself, but the Lord acts decisively, striking Miriam with leprosy because she has spoken against Moses. Moses continues to display humility by praying for Miriam until she is healed of the leprosy and restored to the camp of Israel.
\nThroughout the book of Numbers, Moses repeats this sort of behavior. Two chapters after the challenge from Miriam and Aaron, ten scouts return with an evil report after spying out the land of Canaan. After hearing this report, the Israelites rebel against Moses and Aaron and clamor for a new leader who will take them back to Egypt. Moses and Aaron refrain from defending themselves and instead fall on their faces before the Lord (Num. 14:5). The glory of the Lord appears to vindicate Moses and his leadership. In the end, Moses again prays for the very ones who have resisted his authority, asking God to forgive them.
\nAnother two chapters pass and we come to the notorious rebellion under the leadership of Korach. During this incident, Moses again falls on his face three times, twice joined by Aaron. They know who they are before God, so their response to rebellion is to seek God in the posture of prayer and submission. This is the posture of humility, which reveals Moses as \u201cvery humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth,\u201d and God again vindicates them.
\nFinally, when a new generation rises up to complain against Moses and Aaron, they again \u201cfell on their faces\u201d in the presence of the Lord (Num. 20:5). In this last incident, of course, Moses fail; to follow through in his humility. Instead, he rises up in anger against his people and is punished severely: he will not be allowed to enter the Promised Land.
\nThe word we are translating as \u201chumble\u201d is anav, referring to affliction and weakness, and also to the result of affliction, which is meekness. The same word appears in Psalm 37:11, repeated unforgettably by Yeshua in the Sermon on the Mount: \u201cThe meek shall inherit the earth.\u201d Just as Moses defers to God\u2019s power and wisdom and is vindicated by him, so shall the Lord vindicate those who fall on their faces before him and await his deliverance.
\nIn the light of this clear teaching of the Torah, what are we to make of the behavior of Phinehas at the end of this week\u2019s parashah? The Israelites have just been blessed by the seer Balaam, whom the Midianites originally hired to curse them. Instead of moving on, the Israelites begin to worship the gods of their enemies and commit harlotry with their women. One of them even brings a foreign woman into his tent in the presence of the whole assembly.<\/p>\n
Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. (Num. 25:7\u20138)<\/p>\n
However we may define the word anav, this behavior seems its opposite. Yet this deed stops the plague of judgment among the Israelites, and Phinehas is highly praised for it, receiving for his family an everlasting priesthood \u201cbecause he was zealous for his God\u201d (Num. 25:13).
\nPhinehas is passionate for God, and Moses behaves at times like a an without passion. When people challenge him, he falls on his face before the Lord. What a disappointment to his foes! What satisfaction could they gain from fighting with a man who wouldn\u2019t fight back? Yet Moses reveals great passion when the reputation of God is at stake, praying for the fulfillment of God\u2019s plan. Indeed, it is precisely when Moses becomes passionate on his own behalf, and scolds the rebels to whom God desires to supply water, that he errs and is punished.
\nPhinehas, on the other hand, shows a passion that seems too intense, until we understand it in context:<\/p>\n
The rabbis were uncomfortable with Phinehas\u2019s act. Having slain a man impulsively, without either trial or prior warning, he took the law into his own hands, thereby creating a dangerous precedent. No wonder certain sages claim that Moses and the religious leaders would have excommunicated Phinehas were it not for the divine decree declaring that he had acted on God\u2019s behalf (Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 27b). However, Phinehas can be defended: He did not act on his own initiative but followed God\u2019s command.<\/p>\n
Phinehas follows God\u2019s command that the offenders should be impaled in his presence. Moses directed the judges of Israel to kill all those who \u201cwere joined to Baal of Peor\u201d (Num. 25:4\u20135). He takes action when action is needed and receives a reward. As the Lord says \u201che was zealous with My zeal\u201d (Num. 25:11).
\nBoth Moses the meek and Phinehas the mighty put all their passion into God\u2019s reputation and none into their own. Whenever the Israelites challenge Moses, he rushes, with one exception, to defend not himself, but the divine master plan. Likewise, Phinehas take; the great challenge to God\u2019s reputation personally. When Israel joins itself to the Baal of Peor, Phinehas does not hesitate to respond.
\nYeshua, like Moses, described himself as humble: \u201cTake My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart\u201d (Matt. 11:29). And like Phinehas, he was consumed by zeal for God. When Yeshua drove the money-changers from the Temple courts, \u201cHis disciples remembered that it was written, \u2018Zeal for your house has eaten me up\u2019 \u201d (John 2:17). Yeshua himself is the meek and the mighty, and an example for us to be so as well.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Golda Meir reminds us that we don\u2019t need to be so humble, because we\u2019re not that great. But we can follow Moses, Phinehas, and Messiah in showing more concern for God\u2019s reputation than for our own. How would such a shift in emphasis change my outlook today?<\/p>\n
A WORD FOR THE WISE
\nParashat Pinchas, Numbers 25:10\u201330:1<\/p>\n
Seven things distinguish a fool and seven things distinguish a wise person. The wise person does not speak in the presence of one who is wiser. The wise person does not interrupt when another is speaking. The wise person is not in a hurry to answer. The wise person asks according to the subject and answers according to the Law. The wise person speaks about the first matter first and the last matter last. If there is something the wise person has not heard, the wise person says, \u201cI have never heard.\u201d The wise person acknowledges what is true. The opposite of all these qualities is found in a fool.<\/p>\n
Three times in the narrative of Torah, the Israelites encounter legal cases that the statues and ordinances they have received from God do not directly cover. The cases involve a blasphemer (Lev. 24:10\u201322), some men who were ritually unclean at the time of the Passover sacrifice (Num. 9:6\u201314), and a violator of Shabbat (Num. 15:32\u201336). Each time when the people ask Moses for a ruling, he must answer \u201cI have never heard,\u201d until the Lord gives him additional instructions. Now, in Parashat Pinchas, a fourth case comes before Moses.
\nZelophehad, of the tribe of Manasseh, has died leaving no heir\u2014that is, leaving no son. His surviving daughters, however, appeal to Moses. As women, they cannot inherit land directly, and so they are concerned that their father\u2019s name and inheritance among the tribes will be lost to his family forever. Accordingly, they make their request: \u201cGive us a possession among our father\u2019s brothers\u201d (Num. 27:4). Moses seeks the Lord, who rules in favor of the daughters, and against the patriarchal assumption of the times, thus adding a new instruction to Torah: \u201cIf a man dies and has no son, then you shall cause his inheritance to pass to his daughter\u201d (Num. 27:8).
\nMoses fulfills the description of the \u201cwise person\u201d in the quote above from Pirke Avot. When he does not know, he says \u201cI do not know.\u201d The Midrash comments that Moses thereby provides an example for \u201cthe heads of the Sanhedrin of Israel that were destined to arise after him, that\u2026 they should not be embarrassed to ask for assistance in cases too difficult for them. For even Moses, who was Master of Israel, had to say, \u2018I have not understood.\u2019 Therefore Moses brought their cases before the Lord.\u201d
\nThe ability to admit \u201cI have not heard; I do not know\u201d is rare among leaders, especially in our day of spin and talking points. It seems to be an unspoken rule of politics that you don\u2019t admit mistakes, and you don\u2019t say \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d even when you don\u2019t. How refreshing it would be to see those in power simply admit their mistakes and acknowledge the gaps in their knowledge!
\nThe Psalmist says \u201cThe Torah of the LORD is perfect\u201d (Ps. 19:7 [8]). A thousand years later, Paul writes, \u201cAll Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for rection, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work\u201d (2 Tim. 3:16\u201317). But Scripture\u2019s perfection, its ability to make us complete and thoroughly equipped, does not mean that it spells out everything in detail. Sometimes it directs us back to the Lord for more instruction, or to another provision laid down toward the end of the Torah:<\/p>\n
If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge \u2026. then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them; they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. (Deut. 17:8\u20139)<\/p>\n
Traditional Judaism often cites these verses as a basis for the Oral Torah, rabbinic teachings and interpretations not found in the written Torah, but seen as essential to properly applying it in the various times and places of the Jewish story. This tradition sees the Torah\u2014written and oral\u2014as given once for all, but discovered anew in every generation through discussion and friendly argument. Students in yeshiva, a Jewish school for Torah study, continue to study in this way today.<\/p>\n
To an outsider this method of study can appear chaotic. Each pair works at its own pace; everyone is talking out loud; boys are constantly jumping up to find books or consult with other students; people come and go seemingly at random. But that\u2019s how yeshiva students have been learning for centuries.<\/p>\n
In the case of the daughters of Zelophehad, of course, the answer comes not through study and debate, but through an oracle of God. Nevertheless, their story establishes a truth that remains vital for us. God\u2019s word does not address every specific circumstance we will encounter in life, but it provides all the direction that we need. A wise student of Scripture must sometimes say \u201cI have not heard; I do not know\u201d and seek to learn more.
\nThus, right after Paul tells Timothy that Scripture equips completely, he charges him, \u201cPreach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching\u201d (2 Tim. 4:2). Scripture itself ordains teaching, study, exhortation as the means of revealing all that it has to offer.
\nAs we consider these general applications of the story, however, we should not overlook the specific ruling regarding daughters of Zelophehad, for it echoes the theme of Creation to completion that sounds throughout Torah.
\nThe twelve tribes are about to enter the Promised Land, where each is to receive a divine allotment, and sin breaks into the story again. Zelophehad \u201cdied in his own sin,\u201d according to his daughters, leaving no heir (Num. 27:3). Thus, the division of the land is disrupted, and divine order is threatened. But God takes action to restore the wholeness of the land and people of Israel. What is most striking here is that he does so through the daughters, those who normally are marginalized. Women are generally subject to men in the Mosaic legislation, but God reveals that they are able to inherit, to bear the family name, and to preserve the legacy. God\u2019s ruling in this case reminds us that he originally created woman out of man, not to be subservient, but to be \u201ca sustainer beside him\u201d (Gen. 2:18 Alter). Here again the big story moves forward not on the strength of human custom or insight, but on the wisdom of God.<\/p>\n
For the journey: How willing am I to say, \u201cI have not heard; I do not know\u201d? As we seek to learn Scripture more deeply, the traditional Jewish way of study through conversation and exploration remains a valid model for us. This sort of study does not mean always having he right answer, but having the wisdom to admit that we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
PATHWAY TO PROMISE
\nParashat Mattot, Numbers 30:2\u201332:42<\/p>\n
May it be pleasing in your sight, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, that as I have fulfilled the commandment and dwelt in this sukkah, so may I merit next year to dwell in the sukkah of the skin of Leviathan. Next year in Jerusalem! (Fare-well to the sukkah, from the Siddur)<\/p>\n
At the conclusion of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, Jewish tradition provides a prayer of farewell to the sukkah, the booth in which we are commanded to dwell through the eight days of the festival. But what in the world is the skin of Leviathan, and what does it have to do with Sukkot?
\nLeviathan is the great sea-creature mentioned in Job 3:8 and 41:1 and Psalms 74 and 104. Isaiah sees Leviathan as an embodiment of anti-God forces of chaos that will be subdued in the Age to Come: \u201cIn that day the LORD with his severe sword, great and strong, will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan that twisted serpent; and he will slay the reptile that is in the sea\u201d (Isa. 27:1). In the Talmud, Leviathan appears as a monstrous fish, vanquished in the Age to Come, when the Lord will make a banquet for the righteous from its flesh, and a tabernacle for the righteous from its skin. With the slaying of Leviathan, the forces of disorder are finally subdued.
\nThis project of vanquishing chaos began at Creation itself. The second verse of Torah tells us that the newly-created earth was tohu vavohu, \u201cwild and waste.\u201d Through the six days of Creation, God orders and divides all the elements of heaven and earth, so that at the end he can declare that it is very good. But the work of Creation does not altogether end with the seventh day. When God creates humankind, he assigns them to \u201csubdue\u201d the earth (Gen. 1:28). Even before Adam and Eve fall into disobedience in the Garden of Eden, they have work to do. The primal state of humankind is not passive innocence, but active cooperation with God in bringing creation to its fulfillment. The human being as divine image-bearer has a share in the divine task of ordering Creation.
\nThis same picture emerges in the second account of Creation, in Genesis 2. God places the newly-created Adam in the Garden of Eden \u201cto tend and keep it\u201d (Gen. 2:15) or more literally \u201cto work and guard it.\u201d Eden is not the place of primal innocence, but of primal responsibility. The divine human encounter there is not only one of intimate fellowship, but also one of shared effort. God has so designed Creation that it does not reach completion apart from the effort and diligence of humankind.
\nThis truth is summed up in the phrase cited above from Genesis 1:28, \u201csubdue the earth.\u201d Significantly, the same phrase appears twice in this week\u2019s parashah. Moses is speaking with the tribes of Gad and Reuben, who desire to settle east of the Jordan, outside of the and promised to the tribes of Israel. Moses tells them they cannot abandon the rest of the tribes, but must participate in the conquest of the land. Only later, when \u201cthe land is subdued before the LORD, then you may return and be blameless before the LORD and before Israel\u201d (Num. 32:22, emphasis added). Moses then instructs Eleazar the priest, Joshua, and the chiefs of the rest of the tribes, \u201cIf the children of Gad and the children of Reuben cross over the Jordan with you, every man armed for battle before the LORD, and the land is subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead as a possession\u201d (Num. 32:29, emphasis added).
\n\u201cSubdued\u201d in this passage is from the Hebrew root \u05db\u05d1\u05e9 kavash, the same verb commanded to Adam in Genesis 1. Significantly, it appears in Torah only in these two instances. Furthermore, \u201cland\u201d here is aretz, the same noun usually translated as \u201cearth\u201d in Genesis 1:28. Moses is repeating the phrase \u201csubdue the earth\u201d to apply to the conquest of the Promised Land. When the conquest is finally completed under Joshua, the phrase will appear again: \u201cAnd the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there. And the land was subdued before them\u201d (Josh. 18:1, emphasis added).
\nThe conquest of the Promised Land is an extension of the foundational human task of subduing the earth, of bringing divine order to a Creation not yet perfected. The conquest of the land anticipates the reign of God over all the earth in the Age to Come. The tribes of Israel cannot fulfill their destiny in some quiet or hidden fashion, but only through struggle and perseverance.
\nLikewise, for us, the promise of God does not appear on a silver platter, but is reserved for the diligent and persevering. As Paul instructed his disciples, \u201cWe must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God\u201d (Acts 14:22). Tribulations are not simply obstacles to overcome on the way to the kingdom of God. Rather, they provide the essential pathway to the kingdom. There is no other route.
\nAccordingly, when Reuben and Gad request an inheritance east of the Jordan, outside the place of endurance and conquest, Moses says they can only have an inheritance if they have a share in the task of subduing. \u201cThen afterward you may return and be blameless before the LORD and before Israel; and this land shall be your possession before the LORD\u201d (Num. 32:22).
\nIn the same way, Messiah Yeshua instructs us, \u201cFrom the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force\u201d (Matt. 11:12), and \u201cEnter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it\u201d (Matt. 7:13\u201314).
\nThe two gates not only address how many will enter the life of the kingdom of heaven. They also reveal the nature of the journey to life in the kingdom. It must at times be narrow and difficult, because narrowness and difficulty prepare us for God\u2019s fullness. Yeshua, who is the gate, reveals in his own death and resurrection the essential path to the promise of God.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Sometimes the things that frustrate us the most are the most essential to our spiritual progress. What lies before me that I must subdue on my way to the kingdom of God?<\/p>\n
COURAGE IS CONTAGIOUS
\nParashat Masa\u2018ei, Numbers 33:1\u201336:13<\/p>\n
Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages. (General George Washington)<\/p>\n
The final parashah in Numbers opens with a recap of the history of the previous generation: \u201cThese are the journeys of the children of Israel, who went out of the land of Egypt by their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron\u201d (Num. 33:1). It concludes with the new generation encamped on the plains of Moab and ready to enter the Promised Land. \u201cThese are the commandments and the judgments which the LORD commanded the children of Israel by the hand of Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho\u201d (Num. 36:13).
\nTwo generations with two very different destinies share the space of this final parashah. Our first reading, however, strikes us not with the contrast between the two, but with their similarities. Since the decade of the sixties, we\u2019ve been accustomed to speak of a generation gap, the vast and sometimes irreconcilable differences between generations. In Numbers, however, instead of encountering a generation gap, we discover to our disappointment that the new generation repeats the sins of its parents\u2019 generation. They both complain against Moses and Aaron and mistrust their leadership and, ultimately the Lord himself. They even go so far as to protest their deliverance from Egypt!
\nThe waters of Meribah highlight this similarity between generations. Just as the generation that \u201cwent out of the land of Egypt\u201d complained about lack of water at this site in Exodus 17, so did the new generation in Numbers 20. It may have been shock at the unredeemed quality of the new generation that led Moses to transgress in his response to them, as we saw in Parashat Hukkat.
\nNevertheless, despite such similarities, the new generation will enter the Promised Land, the very thing that the older generation failed to do. What is the difference between these generations? It may be summed up in one word: courage.
\nCourage, we are often told, is not the absence of fear. Rather, it is doing the right thing despite fear, inability, and uncertainty about the outcome. Such courage is contagious.
\nIn the United States, we remember 1776 as the year of independence, but we forget that it was also a year of military defeat and near-disaster for the new republic. The British easily drove Washington and his troops out of New York City, which both sides saw as a strategic key to the entire war. The Continental Army fled across New Jersey, barely evading the far superior forces of the British army. Finally, it crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania for safety. Even then, the Continental Congress, meeting in nearby Philadelphia, felt so threatened that it fled to Baltimore. Finally, Washington saw an opportunity to turn things around. On Christmas night 1776, in the midst of a freezing storm, he led 2400 of his ill-clad, hungry, discouraged troops back across the Delaware, boatload by boatload, to attack the Hessian garrison at Trenton in the morning. It was the first clear victory for the Americans. A few days later, in response to a British counter-attack, Washington led his troops behind the front to attack Princeton. This led to a second American victory, but only after the field commander was killed and Washington took personal command. One of his officers describes the scene: \u201cI shall never forget what I felt \u2026 when I saw him brave all the dangers of the field and his important life hanging as it were by a single hair with a thousand deaths flying around him. Believe me, I thought not of myself.\u201d
\nCourage is contagious. Washington\u2019s display of courage inspired his officers and men to think not of themselves or the danger they faced, but only of the glorious cause.
\nWithout courage there can be no obedience to God\u2019s word, no leadership of God\u2019s people. The first generation lacks the courage to enter the Promised Land; the new generation moves forward and enters in. When the twelve spies were sent to scout out the land, Moses instructed them, \u201cv\u2019hit\u2019chazaktem\u201d \u201cand be of good courage\u201d (from the root \u05d7\u05d6\u05e7 or hazak). But only Joshua and Caleb had the courage to believe that they could actually take the land as God had commanded. Later, when Joshua is appointed to lead the people, God tells Moses, \u201coto hazek\u2014encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it\u201d (Deut. 1:38).
\nWe have already seen that the wilderness is the place of both testing and blessing. Courage determines which will dominate. The same trials that wear down the fainthearted and lead them into sin motivate the courageous and lead them into new strength and dedication.
\nThe Midrash captures both possibilities in its commentary on the opening words of our parashah, \u201cThese are the journeys.\u2026\u201d First, it says, \u201cThe Holy One Blessed Be He said to Moses: \u2018Write down the stages by which Israel journeyed in the wilderness, in order that they shall know what miracles I wrought for them.\u2019 \u201d Immediately after, it says, \u201cThe Holy One Blessed Be He said to Moses: \u2018Recount to them all the places where they provoked Me.\u2019 \u201d
\nThe same locations can be places of miracle and scenes of provocation. Trials and difficulties inevitably come our way, but these are not what wear us down, for they also are occasions for miraculous intervention.
\nCourage is contagious, and so is its opposite, discouragement. Numbers teaches us that we lose courage, or become discouraged, when we respond in certain ways to our trials.<\/p>\n
\u2022 We lose courage when we second-guess ourselves. Like our fore bears, we contemplate a return to Egypt instead of preparing for the future into which God is leading us.<\/p>\n
\u2022 We lose courage when we allow ourselves to complain and cast blame upon others instead of taking responsibility for our problems and seeking a solution.<\/p>\n
\u2022 We lose courage when we listen to negativity and unbelief instead of remembering God\u2019s promise and all that he has already brought us through on the way to its fulfillment.<\/p>\n
The first generation listened to words of discouragement and failed to enter the Promised Land. The next generation gradually learned to listen to and speak words of encouragement themselves, saying to Joshua: \u201cAll that you command us, we will do \u2026. Only be strong and of good courage\u201d (Josh. 1:16\u201318).
\nCourage is contagious. It is good to have models like Joshua or Washington, but the ultimate source of our courage is Messiah himself.<\/p>\n
Let us, too, put aside every impediment\u2014that is, the sin which easily hampers our forward movement\u2014and keep running with endurance in the contest set before us, looking away to the Initiator and Completer of that trusting, Yeshua\u2014who, in exchange for obtaining the joy set before him, endured execution on a stake as a criminal, scorning the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Yes, think about him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you won\u2019t grow tired or become despondent. (Heb. 12:lb\u20133 CJB)<\/p>\n
We can gain courage and we pass courage on to others through words of encouragement. Hence, as we conclude our reading of Numbers, as at the end of each book of the Torah, we repeat the traditional words: \u05d7\u05d6\u05e7 \u05d7\u05d6\u05e7 \u05d5\u05e0\u05ea\u05d7\u05d6\u05e7\u2014Hazak! Hazak\u200d! V\u2019nit\u2019chazek! Be strong! Be courageous! And let us encourage one another!<\/p>\n
For the journey: Courage is contagious. It\u2019s not enough just to survive our trials and difficulties, for if we view them courageously they become the site of miracles. How can I encourage myself and those around me today?<\/p>\n
\u05d3\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd<\/p>\n
THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY<\/p>\n
Deuteronomy opens with the phrase \u201cThese are the words\u2026\u201d or Eleh had\u2019varim, which yields the Hebrew title \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd (D\u2019varim), or Words. The title is fitting because Deuteronomy consists almost entirely of Moses\u2019 extended discourse, which takes place on the eastern shore of the Jordan River. Only at the end does the narrative resume, with the account of Moses\u2019 death and burial by the hand of God.
\nDeuteronomy addresses the age-old challenge of continuity. Will a new generation carry on the legacy and fulfill the calling of the older generation? The generation that departed Egypt failed to enter the Promised Land; will the next generation do better? To encourage this new generation, Moses, leader of the old generation, will repeat the entire instruction of Torah in the book of Deuteronomy (which means \u201csecond law\u201d in Greek).
\nThe structure of these discourses is highly significant, because it reflects the structure of ancient Near Eastern covenant treaty documents which have been uncovered by modern archaeology. These documents defined and protected the relationship between a might-king and his vassals. In the same way, Deuteronomy defines to a new generation the terms of their relationship with God, and the destiny that this implies. The entire book then, is a covenant renewal document, which corresponds in structure to ancient covenant treaties. Here we see the normal components of an ancient covenant, and the corresponding sections of Deuteronomy:<\/p>\n
1. Preamble which identifies the covenant grantor
\n1:1\u20135
\n2. Historical prologue
\n1:6\u20134:49
\n3. Covenant obligations:
\n5:1\u201326:19
\na. The great commandment, dedication to God
\n5:1\u201311:32
\nb. Detailed commandments
\n12:1\u201326:19
\n4. Blessings and curses, with invocation of witnesses
\n27:1\u201330:20
\n5. Covenant continuity, including stipulations for copies (see Exodus 25:16, 21; Deut. 10:1\u20132)
\n31:1\u201334:12<\/p>\n
In Deuteronomy, God is the mighty king, who has made a covenant with the descendants of Abraham that he will be their God and they will be his people. Therefore, covenant fidelity or love, termed hesed in Hebrew, becomes a dominant theme throughout Deuteronomy. Hesed is the basis for the great commandment of Deuteronomy, as stated in the Shema, Israel\u2019s declaration of allegiance to the Lord: \u05e9\u05de\u05e2 \u05d9\u05e9\u05e8\u05d0\u05dc \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05d7\u05d3 (Sh\u2018ma Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad), \u201cHear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might\u201d (Deut. 6:4\u20135 NJPS).
\nThe detailed stipulations that follow this great commandment simply define and apply that love within the various situations and conditions that Israel will encounter, especially as it takes possession of the Promised Land. God\u2019s requirements are simple but demanding, and Israel will fall short. In Deuteronomy, Moses testifies \u201cregarding them, telling them what the future would bring in exile, as well is the future redemption which would come after total despair.\u201d
\nDeuteronomy prepares Israel, from the inside out, for the next great stage in their journey, the conquest of Canaan. This victory will clear the way for a theocratic realm displaying the covenant faithfulness of God to future generations of Israelites, and to the surrounding nations as well. Moses predicts, however, that this realm will fail and end in exile, but he also pictures the day of restoration, which Jews and Christians still await in hope.<\/p>\n
When all these things befall you\u2014the blessing and the curse that I have set before you\u2014and you take them to heart amidst the various nations to which the LORD your God has banished you, and you return to the LORD your God, and you and your children heed His command with all your heart and soul, just as I enjoin upon you this day, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and take you back in love. (Deut. 30:1\u20133a, NJPS)<\/p>\n
The message of the last of the Five Books of Moses is that the way from Creation to completion, introduced in the first of the Five Books, is found through love of God. And even if human love fails, God\u2019s love will ensure the way.<\/p>\n
GOD CARRIES ISRAEL
\nParashat D\u2019varim, Deuteronomy 1:1\u20133:22<\/p>\n
Rabbi Judah said: Come and see the meekness of God. Among human beings, when a man has a young child he carries him on his shoulders, but if the child angers him he at once throws him down. But, if one may say so, with God it is not so; Israel were in the wilderness forty years and they provoked Him to anger and yet He bore them.<\/p>\n
Deuteronomy will reiterate the statues and ordinances laid down in the rest of Torah, along with warnings against disobedience and its outcome, which is exile. But before Moses speaks of these things, he reminds the Israelites of a more basic truth:<\/p>\n
In the wilderness \u2026you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place. Yet, for all that, you did not believe the LORD your God, who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day. (Deut. 1:31\u201333)<\/p>\n
When my sons still lived at home, I took them backpacking in wilderness every summer. Especially in their younger years, I had to make sure they packed the right clothes and equipment, and I planned the ultra-light meals that we had to carry. When we were actually hiking, I\u2019d keep an eye on the time to make sure that we started early enough to look for a place to pitch our tent. My boys could probably have found the right place themselves, but I saw it as my fatherly role to choose the spot that would be dry, safe, and comfortable through the night.
\nIn Israel\u2019s wanderings, future as well as past, the Lord carries Israel, sustaining, protecting, and going before his people to show the way. This truth is all the more striking because Moses has already reminded the people, using the same Hebrew verb, that he cannot carry them. \u201cAnd I spoke to you at that time, saying: \u2018I alone am not able to bear you\u2019 \u201d (Deut. 1:9). The burden is too great for any human being, but God himself will take it up. Like a father watching out for his children, God will go before Israel to find a good campsite that is safe and sheltered.
\nThe story above emphasizes God\u2019s faithfulness, but there is another old story about a child carried on his father\u2019s shoulders. This child cannot see the father who is bearing him and begins to ask every passerby, \u201cWhere is my father?\u201d He does not believe them n when they tell him that his father is carrying him, but keeps wondering where his father can be. Finally, the father becomes exasperated with his unbelieving son and puts him down\u2014none too gently\u2014to walk on his own two feet, where he is soon attacked by a dog and bitten.
\nThis story illustrates Israel\u2019s distrust of God, and the exile that results, an exile in which Israel is indeed attacked by many dogs. It reminds us that we too are often slow to recognize God\u2019s presence in our lives, even though he sustains us every step of the way.
\nThroughout Torah, beginning with Abraham, the people of Israel are on a journey with God, and so is each individual Israelite. Indeed, the only generations in Torah that do not journey are those that dwell in Egypt as slaves. Deuteronomy reminds us that God is with us on this journey, both in its toughest stretches and in its moments of glory. And since God is with us, he will bring us to journey\u2019s end, the land of promise, the place of rest. With this destination assured, there is no room in our lives for anxiety and distrust.
\nImportant as this personal reminder is, however, the primary concern of Deuteronomy is not the individual spiritual journey, but the destiny of Israel. Moses reminds Israel that this destiny will be fulfilled through God\u2019s faithfulness, if not through theirs.
\nIn the synagogue, we normally read Parashat D\u2019varim just before Tish\u2019ah B\u2019Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, a date that commemorates the greatest tragedies in Jewish history. On this date, both the first and second Temples were destroyed and the exile of the people of Israel from their land began. Throughout the centuries of exile, on this same day, a number of other disasters befell the Jewish people, most notably the expulsion from Spain in 1492, which ended a golden age of Jewish history.
\nMoses reminds us that the Lord has been present with his people throughout all these disasters. Exile does not end Israel\u2019s covenant relationship with the Lord. Rather, it is a journey of discipline that leads to Israel\u2019s final restoration. The God of Israel is working out his own purpose throughout history, sometimes with human cooperation, and more often without it. His purpose is to reveal his own love and faithfulness to all humankind, and to restore the original purpose of blessing established at the Creation.
\nIt would be a mistake, however, to think of Israel as simply a means to this end, as if the Lord had to find someone through whom to demonstrate his goodness, and arbitrarily chose Israel. Instead, the image of God carrying Israel as a father carries his son, and going before Israel throughout their wanderings, speaks of the Lord\u2019s intimate involvement in Israel\u2019s story. \u201cFor the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing\u201d (Deut. 2:7).
\nGod carries Israel because he loves him as a father loves his children. He carries Israel throughout its entire journey of glory, exile and restoration.
\nDeuteronomy echoes the promise established here in Parashat D\u2019varim throughout. The B\u2019rit Hadashah applies this promise to all who follow Yeshua. \u201cHe Himself has said, \u2018I will never leave you nor forsake you.\u2019 So we may boldly say: \u2018The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?\u2019 \u201d (Heb. 13:5\u20136; see Deut. 31:6, 8).
\nSurely, God intends such faithfulness to be not only an encouragement, but also an example to us. We too have made commitments that we must honor through good times and bad. We demonstrate our wholeness as human beings by our ability to remain faithful to other human beings, who can be just as flawed and unlovable as we are.
\nIn the past, Christian theology often pictured the election of Israel as only a means to an end, a vehicle to bring about the Messiah and his redemption. Now that Messiah has come, in such thinking, God can replace the vehicle. Surely, however, such a view dishonors God as much as Israel, and erodes our sense of God\u2019s faithfulness. Instead, God faithfully carries Israel even through times of discipline. In the end, this same faithfulness will carry Israel to its redemption, as Moses sings:<\/p>\n
Happy are you, O Israel!
\nWho is like you, a people saved by the LORD,
\nThe shield of your help
\nAnd the sword of your majesty! (Deut. 33:29a)<\/p>\n
For the journey: In Messiah, God says, \u201cI will never leave you nor forsake you,\u201d a promise that both encourages us and provides an example. God has been faithful to us\u2014how faithful have we been to our children, our loved ones, and all those whom God has placed in our lives?<\/p>\n
THE GREAT COMMANDMENT
\nParashat Va\u2019etchanan, Deuteronomy 3:23\u20137:11<\/p>\n
One of the Torah-teachers came up and heard them engaged in this discussion. Seeing that Yeshua answered them well, he asked him, \u201cWhich is the most important mitzvah of them all?\u201d Yeshua answered, \u201cThe most important is,<\/p>\n
\u2018Sh\u2019ma Yisra\u2019el, ADONAI Eloheinu, ADONAI echad [Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one], and you are to love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding and with all your strength.\u2019<\/p>\n
The second is this:<\/p>\n
\u2018You are to love your neighbor as yourself.\u2019<\/p>\n
There is no other mitzvah greater than these. (Mark 12:28\u201331, CJB)<\/p>\n
Deuteronomy is a document that renews the covenant between God and Israel. This covenant is lengthy and detailed, but at its heart is a simple requirement, captured in the great commandment known in Judaism as the Shema, or \u201cHear!\u201d from the first word of Deuteronomy 6:4. This verse is among the most important in the entire Torah, and like that other vitally important verse, Genesis 1:1, its exact meaning has been debated for centuries.
\nThe most familiar approach to translation would be the one reflected above; \u201cHear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.\u201d An alternative version is, \u201cHear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone\u201d (NJPS). This reading is less familiar (although it does go all the way back to the medieval Jewish commentator Ibn Ezra), but it may reflect the context of Deuteronomy better than the older interpretation, \u201cthe Lord is one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first, older translation, which makes a statement about the unity and indivisibility of God, does not do full justice to this text. \u2026The verse makes not a quantitative argument (about the number of deities) but a qualitative one, about the nature of the relationship between God and Israel.<\/p>\n
When Moses addresses the children of Israel who are about to enter the Promised Land, he is not concerned with defining the nature of God\u2014\u201cthe Lord is one\u201d\u2014but with calling them to loyalty to God, to \u201cthe Lord alone.\u201d Hence, he goes on to say, \u201cYou shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength\u201d (Deut. 6:5).
\nThe towering Jewish intellectual figure of the middle ages, Rambam, cites the Shema to answer a question not of theology, but of devotion:<\/p>\n
What is the way that we should love God? We should love Him with an overwhelming and unlimited live, until our soul becomes permanently bound in the love of God, like one who is love-sick and cannot take his mind off the woman he loves, but always thinks of her\u2014when lying down or rising up, when eating or drinking. Even greater than this should be the love of God in the hearts of those who love Him, thinking about Him constantly, as He commanded us, \u201cAnd thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prophet Zechariah reflects this understanding of the Shema as a declaration of covenant love when he quotes it to describe the conditions of the Age to Come:<\/p>\n
And the LORD shall be King over all the earth.
\nIn that day it shall be\u2014\u201cThe LORD is one,\u201d
\nAnd His name one. (Zech. 14:9)<\/p>\n
Surely, Zechariah is not quoting the Shema as a statement about the nature of God, because God\u2019s nature will not change \u201cin that day.\u201d Rather, it is a statement about our relationship with God, for \u201cin that day,\u201d we will worship him alone, and his name alone will be recognized in all the earth.
\nThus, as Yeshua teaches, the Shema is a commandment, \u201cthe first and great commandment\u201d (Matt. 22:38). It is not a statement of God\u2019s absolute and indivisible unity, as one approach to translation assumes, but a statement of our undivided loyalty to God. When the Shema tells us to worship God \u201cwith all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength,\u201d it is not dividing us into different compartments, but speaking of the whole person as one.<\/p>\n
All of man\u2019s strivings should be directed toward the Creator, blessed be He. A man should have no other purpose in whatever he does, be it great or small, than to draw nigh to God and to break down all separating walls \u2026 between himself and his Master, so that he may be drawn to God as iron to a magnet.<\/p>\n
Jewish law or halakhah directs the worshiper to recite the Shema (in its entirety, comprising Deuteronomy 6:4\u20139, 11:13\u201321, and Numbers 15:37\u201341) twice every day, \u201cwhen you lie down, and when you rise up,\u201d thereby accepting \u201cthe yoke of the Kingdom of heavsn.\u201d By reciting the Shema, the worshiper binds himself to the God of Israel as sovereign king.<\/p>\n
Modern readers regard the Shema as an assertion of monotheism, a view that is anachronistic. In the context of ancient Israelite religion, it served as a public proclamation of exclusive loyalty to Hashem as the sole Lord of Israel. [By reciting the Shema], the worshipper \u2026 reenters, twice daily, the original covenant ratification ceremony that, in Deuteronomy, took place on the plains of Moab.<\/p>\n
The Shema is not the great description, but the great commandment, which we can fulfill only by loving God with all our hearts, souls, and might.<\/p>\n
The Torah-teacher said to him, \u201cWell said, Rabbi; you speak the truth when you say that he is one, and that there is no other besides him; and that loving him with all one\u2019s heart, understanding and strength, and loving one\u2019s neighbor as oneself, mean more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.\u201d When Yeshua saw that he responded sensibly, he said to him, \u201cYou are not far from the Kingdom of God.\u201d (Mark 12:32\u201334, CJB)<\/p>\n
The Kingdom of God is another term for Creation completed, the goal of the entire age in which we are living. When we love God with all our hearts and understanding and strength, we are \u201cnot far\u201d from that glorious destination.<\/p>\n
For the journey: What is the way that we should love God? Love for God should resemble the longing of one who is love-sick for a man or woman. How do I cultivate such an all-consuming love for God? What are the lesser loves that divide my heart?<\/p>\n
THE REWARD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
\nParashat \u2018Ekev, Deuteronomy 7:12\u201311:25<\/p>\n
With thousands feared drowned in what could be America\u2019s deadliest natural disaster in a century, New Orleans\u2019 leaders all but surrendered the streets to floodwaters and began turning out the lights on the ruined city\u2014perhaps for months.
\n[Mayor] Nagin called for an all-out evacuation of the city\u2019s remaining residents. Asked how many people died, he said: \u201cMinimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the final days of August 2005, Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. New Orleans was evacuated and the entire city became flooded after the hurricane passed. Television screens around the world were filled with images of people who did not, or could not because of poverty or disability, leave when the evacuation order came. Some were wading chest-deep through filthy water in what had been their neighborhoods. Others were trapped in apartments and on rooftops waiting for days to be rescued. Those who had finally escaped the flood waters found refuge on the bare concrete expanse of interstate highways waiting again for help. Others were transported to huge shelters where they\u2019d be warehoused for days until someone could figure out the next step.
\nThese images remind us of the question, is there justice in this world? Is disaster a punishment for wrongdoing? Conversely, is there a reward for doing right instead of wrong? This week\u2019s parashah opens with a promise of reward for those who do right, but later portrays the limitations of reward.<\/p>\n
Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He swore to your fathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples (7:12\u201314b).<\/p>\n
There may be a reward for doing right, as this passage states, but one of the early sages, Antigonos of Socho, downplays its importance: \u201cDon\u2019t be like those who would serve a master on the condition that they would receive a reward. Rather, be like those who would serve without that condition. Even so, let the fear of Heaven be upon you.\u201d
\nAntigonos\u2019s distrust of reward may arise out of the historical setting in which he lived, as hinted at by his name. He is the first of the rabbinic figures to have a Greek name, and lived in the era when the land of Israel was ruled by the Hellenistic empire established by Alexander the Great. Many Jews lived in Israel in those days, but it was hardly the scene of reward as promised in Deuteronomy. Under the imperial occupation, as during the New Orleans flood, the lesson is that even if reward is slow in coming, one must still remain faithful.
\nCenturies later, under a different foreign occupation, Yeshua likewise instructs his disciples not to serve on the condition of receiving a reward. \u201cSo likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, \u2018We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do\u2019 \u201d (Luke 17:10). At the same time, he does promise a reward to his followers, both in this age and the Age to Come:<\/p>\n
Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel\u2019s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time\u2014houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions\u2014and in the age to come, eternal life. (Mark 10:29\u201330)<\/p>\n
Of course, this promise is a bit different from the promise in Parashat \u2018Ekev, because it comes \u201cwith persecutions.\u201d But the Torah also reminds us that rewards have their problems.<\/p>\n
When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you. Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest\u2026 you say in your heart, \u201cMy power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.\u201d (8:10\u201317, emphasis added)<\/p>\n
The reward should lead us to be wary, because prosperity can make us forget God. In the contemporary world, the nations that are the most prosperous are filled with secularism, unbelief, and depravity, falling under the deception that \u201cMy power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.\u201d Surely, in the midst of the materialism and consumerism of our modern world, we need to be on guard. The practical instructions of Torah about care for the poor may provide a safeguard for us.<\/p>\n
If there is among you a poor man of your brethren, within any of the gates in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother, but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs. (Deut. 15:7\u20138)<\/p>\n
I once encountered a man who appeared a bit deranged begging on a street corner, crying out, \u201cI just need $2.89 for a plate of spaghetti at Tommy\u2019s [a local restaurant]!\u201d I walked right by him, but had hardly gotten across the street when I felt compelled, as if from above, to go back and give the man $5.00 so he could buy lunch. When I walked away, I thought, \u201cBut who knows if he really even needs the money?\u201d Again, I felt a divine intervention, this time saying, \u201cRight, who knows if he needs the money, but you need to give it to him.\u201d
\nWe may never have an answer in this world to the questions about justice raised by the New Orleans flood and other natural calamities. As we keep our hearts and hands open to the poor among us, however, we guard ourselves from the deceptiveness of prosperity\u2014even prosperity that we might consider a reward from God. And we will always have poor among us, \u201c[f]or the poor will never cease from the land\u201d (Deut. 15:11). Or as Yeshua reminded us, \u201cFor you have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good\u201d (Mark 14:7).
\nThe poor, of course, have many needs, but we who have much also need them.<\/p>\n
For the journey: The Torah says to \u201cbeware\u201d when we are well fed, that we don\u2019t forget God. Surely, this warning must be in full force for us in the West today! When we encounter those who are not so prosperous, whether on a local street corner, or in the world news, how does their presence help us to beware?<\/p>\n
THE GODS OF OTHERS
\nParashat Re\u2019eh, Deuteronomy 11:26\u201316:17<\/p>\n
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man\u2014and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Rom. 1:22\u201325)<\/p>\n
Nowhere is the Jewishness of Paul more evident than in his response to idolatry. In his letter to the Romans, Paul, like the Hebrew prophets before him, portrays idolatry as the source of all sin and rejection of God. A thousand years later, Rambam or Maimonides likewise sees the prohibition of idolatry as the root of all the other laws of Torah:<\/p>\n
For the foundation of the whole of our Law and the pivot around which it turns, consists in the effacement of these idolatrous opinions from the minds and of these monuments from existence. \u2026 For the sages say: Herefrom you may learn that everyone who professes idolatry, disbelieves in the Torah in its entirety; whereas he who disbelieves in idolatry, professes the Torah in its entirety.<\/p>\n
The prohibition against idolatry appears as the first of the Ten Commandments: \u201cI am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me\u201d (Exod. 20:2\u20133).
\n\u201cOther gods\u201d here is Elohim acherim, but Rashi finds this reading problematic. How can the Torah warn us against serving other gods, when there are no other gods? Hence, he reads the phrase as Elohey acherim, \u201cthe gods of others.\u201d<\/p>\n
This means that they are not divine, but others made them gods over them. It is impossible to explain the term as \u201cother gods,\u201d that is, \u201cgods other than Myself,\u201d for it is an affront toward Him Who is above to call them \u201cgods\u201d alongside Him.<\/p>\n
The reading \u201cthe gods of others\u201d took deep root in traditional Judaism, countering not only idolatry, but all worship that reflected the ways of the surrounding nations. This tradition helps to explain the resistance to Yeshua still encountered in the Jewish world today. As long as Yeshua appears to be the God of the Gentiles, that is, \u201ca god of others,\u201d most Jewish people will not even consider him as the Messiah. Moses\u2019 warning against false prophecy in Parashat Re\u2019eh reinforces this reaction.<\/p>\n
Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it. If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, \u201cLet us go after other gods [or the god of others]\u201d\u2014which you have not known\u2014\u201cand let us serve them,\u201d you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deut. 12:32\u201313:3 [1\u20134])<\/p>\n
How would we know if a powerful prophet is leading us astray from the God of Israel? He will \u201cadd to\u201d or \u201ctake away front\u201d the God-given instructions. If Yeshua taught a way \u201cwhich you have not known,\u201d he is not to be followed. Even the signs and wonders that he performed, including the great sign of the resurrection, cannot override this prohibition in the minds of traditionally oriented Jewish people.
\nIf Yeshua had come to destroy the Torah, God forbid, he could not be the Messiah of Israel, or the savior of the nations. But of course, the idea that Yeshua supplants Torah can only arise from a gross misinterpretation. Yeshua himself made it clear. \u201cDon\u2019t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud [the smallest Hebrew letter] or a stroke will pass from the Torah\u2014not until everything that must happen has happened\u201d (Matt. 5:17\u201318, CJB).
\nFor the Messianic Jewish community, this issue underlines our imperative to restore Yeshua to his place within Israel, rather than to call Jews out of Israel to follow him.
\nThe same issue calls the wider body of Messiah to realize that it serves the God of Israel, not a god of others, which leads to a new and deeper respect for the teachings of the Torah. Gentile believers do not relate to all the details of Torah in the same way that Jews do, but they should read Torah as foundational to the rest of Scripture, including the New Testament or B\u2019rit Hadashah.
\nOnly a false reading of the B\u2019rit Hadashah would make one think that Yeshua led people away from Torah. He not only affirms Torah, but he becomes the source of Torah, divine instruction, to the nations, fulfilling the ancient Jewish hope founded in the words of Isaiah:<\/p>\n
Now it shall come to pass in the latter days \u2026
\nMany people shall come and say,
\n\u201cCome, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
\nTo the house of the God of Jacob;
\nHe will teach us His ways,
\nAnd we shall walk in His paths.\u201d
\nFor out of Zion shall go forth the Torah,
\nAnd the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. (Isa. 2:2\u20133)<\/p>\n
Followers of Yeshua have not always acknowledged Zion as their spiritual homeland, or Torah as the word of God sent out from there. Such followers may have separated themselves from Torah, but Yeshua never did. Instead, he has brought multitudes from all nations to the God of Israel and his ways, even as the prophets foretold.<\/p>\n
For the journey: We live in a day of reconciliation, as more and more Christians realize that in Messiah they do not serve the god of others, but the God of Israel, and Torah, the unique heritage of the Jewish people, becomes a source of guidance to all believers. How do I play a part in this reconciliation?<\/p>\n
THE PROPHET LIKE MOSES
\nParashat Shof\u2019tim, Deuteronomy 16:18\u201321:9<\/p>\n
The Rock, perfect in all his deeds; who can say to him, \u2018What do you do?\u2019 The One who says and does, do undeserved grace upon us, and in the merit of him who was bound like a lamb, hear and act. (From the traditional Jewish burial service of the Siddur)<\/p>\n
One of the age-old controversies between Judaism and Christianity concerns the need for a mediator between God and man. The rabbinic writings often assert that Israel needs no intermediary with God, but can approach him directly. Thus, Sforno comments on the first of the Ten Commandments: \u201cI am Hashem, the LORD your God\u201d (Exod. 20:2):<\/p>\n
I alone am Hashem who grants existence; the Prime Cause known to you through tradition and proof; and I confirm that you have accepted upon yourself My sovereignty, to be your God, with no need for a mediator. Therefore, to Me alone shall you pray, and Me alone shall you serve without any mediator.<\/p>\n
Likewise, Rambam says that this commandment and the one following\u2014\u201cYou shall have no other gods before Me\u201d\u2014\u201creached [Israel] just as they reached Moses our Master and that it was not Moses our Master who communicated them to them.\u201d All Israel stood before the Lord at Sinai and received His revelation directly with no mediator.
\nYet, as the prayer above attests, another strain of Jewish thought calls out for a mediator, for one whose merit will benefit all Israel, as Isaac\u2019s is believed to have done. This ambivalence about a mediator reflects a tension within the biblical text itself. For example, it is true that God appeared directly to all Israel at Mount Sinai, but it is also true that Moses serves as an intermediary through much of that encounter. Only by ignoring this major element of the story could one say that Israel needs no mediator with God.
\nThus, just before Rambam claims that the first two commandments came to Israel with no mediator, he writes,<\/p>\n
It is clear to me that at the Gathering at Mount Sinai, not everything that reached Moses also reached all Israel. Speech was addressed to Moses alone \u2026 and he, peace be on him, went to the foot of the mountain and communicated to the people what he had heard. The text of the Torah reads: I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to declare unto you the word of the LORD. (Deut. 5:5)<\/p>\n
At Mount Sinai, Israel encounters the Lord \u201cface to face,\u201d according to Deuteronomy 5:4, but in the next verse Moses \u201cstands between\u201d the Lord and Israel to mediate the divine word. Indeed, this seems to be Moses\u2019 unique place within the story of the Jewish people. He alone communicates with the Lord \u201cface to face\u201d and brings the report of this communication back to the people.<\/p>\n
It was after they had heard that first voice that they were terrified of the thing and felt a great fear, and they said: And ye said, Behold the Lord hath shown us, and so on. Now therefore why should we die, and so on. Go thou near and hear, and so on. Thereupon he, who was greater than anyone born of man, went forward a second time, received the rest of the commandments one after the other, descended to the foot of the mountain, and made them hear these commandments in the midst of that great gathering.<\/p>\n
Moses, then, indeed serves as mediator between God and Israel. In this week\u2019s parashah, he is contemplating the end of his life, which means the end of his mediatory work. Was this mediation only necessary for the first generation, for those who received the Torah at Mount Sinai? Can Israel now meet with God face to face with no one to stand between them and him? No, as Moses says that when he is gone,<\/p>\n
The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, \u201cLet me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.\u201d (Deut. 18:15\u201316)<\/p>\n
This prophet will be a mediator in the same way that Moses [was a mediator. Like Moses, he will hear the voice of the Lord and see the fire of God\u2019s presence, and then he will speak to the people. Through him, God will reveal himself to Israel. \u201cAnd it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him\u201d (Deut. 18:19).
\nThe Torah will conclude at the end of Deuteronomy with a statement that the prophet like Moses had not yet appeared. \u201cBut since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face\u201d (34:10). For Messianic Jews, of course, this Prophet arose many centuries later, in the person of Yeshua.
\nBased on our text, Peter urges the Jews of Jerusalem to heed the message of Yeshua.<\/p>\n
But this is how God fulfilled what he had announced in advance, when he spoke through all the prophets, namely, that his Messiah was to die. Therefore, repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be erased; so that times of refreshing may come from the Lord\u2019s presence; and he may send the Messiah appointed in advance for you, that is, Yeshua.\u2026 For Moshe himself said, \u201cADONAI will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You are to listen to everything he tells you.\u201d (Acts 3:18\u201320, 22 CJB)<\/p>\n
Judaism then, like Christianity, recognizes the need for a mediator. His identity remains an all-important question, and we are confident that it is resolved in Yeshua the Messiah. But we cannot neglect another question, one implied by the ambivalence within the text. Why do we need a mediator at all? All Israel stood before God at Mount Sinai. All Israel has a share in his Torah, and a claim on the riches of Jewish heritage. These things are not the province of a priestly caste, but of all the people.
\nWhy do we need a mediator? Our sins distance us from God, but even more relevant is the ineffable holiness of God. He reaches out to us in mercy, yet his purity and splendor are so great that a vast gulf remains between him and us. God\u2019s inapproachability may not jibe with our modern, consumer-centered expectation that we should all enjoy a divine connection 24\/7, but the picture is clear. Between the holy God of Israel and humankind, even the best of humankind, is a vast gulf. Thank God that he has sent a Prophet like Moses to bridge that gulf.<\/p>\n
For the journey: My need for a mediator is a comment on the holiness of God. It means that in myself I am never worthy to approach him at all. How does this realization change the way that I pray, worship, and serve God and those around me?<\/p>\n
REMEMBER AMALEK
\nParashat Ki Tetse, Deuteronomy 21:10\u201325:19<\/p>\n
The task of requesting deliverance is too formidable for an individual alone, no matter how great the individual is. Even Moses himself could not approach Hashem on his own to ask Him to rescue the Jewish nation from Amalek; Moses needed two others to demonstrate that his entreaty represented the will of the whole nation.<\/p>\n
Twentieth-century rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik relates this story about the battle against Amalek to the Kol Nidrey prayer that opens the services for Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement. The battle with Amalek begins when they attack the Israelites shortly after Israel left Egypt.<\/p>\n
So Joshua \u2026 fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And so it was, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses\u2019 hands became heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. (Exod. 17:10\u201313)<\/p>\n
At the end of the battle, the Lord declared that he would have war on Amalek through all generations. Now, in Parashat Ki Tetse, Moses commands a new generation to \u201c[r]emember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt\u201d (Deut. 25:17), and to blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven, because \u201che met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God\u201d (Deut. 25:18).<\/p>\n
The Kol Nidrey, literally \u201cAll Vows,\u201d prayer is chanted to a beautiful melody at the opening of Yom Kippur. It is an ancient appeal to God to forgive any vows made to him that are impossible to fulfill, thus preparing the worshiper to meet him on this holiest of Jewish holidays. As the cantor chants the prayer, it is customary for two people to stand on either side of him or her, just as Aaron and Hur stood on either side of Moses during the battle against Amalek.
\nWhat is the connection between Amalek and the opening prayer of Yom Kippur? Throughout the Days of Awe from Rosh HaShanah through Yom Kippur, we pray for God to establish his sovereignty in our midst, and that we would be fit subjects of his reign. Rabbi Soloveitchik notes, however, that \u201cHashem\u2019s sovereignty is not absolute as long as Amalek continues to exist.\u201d He goes on to ask, \u201cWho then is Amalek, whose presence somehow inhibits Hashem\u2019s sovereignty?\u201d
\nIn a remarkable insight, Rabbi Soloveitchik places Amalek in the context of the Creation story, when \u201cHashem created the earth from tohu vavohu, chaos and void\u201d (Genesis 1:2). At the Creation, the Lord did not completely eliminate chaos, but allowed some to remain. \u201cAmalek represents this leftover chaos, identified with sin, which remained behind so man himself can actively play a role in destroying it.\u201d
\nGod\u2019s ultimate design for humankind, as we have seen throughout this book, is not simply a return to the Garden of Eden and its innocence. Even in the Garden, human beings had a work to accomplish, and God\u2019s purposes will not be fulfilled without human participation. As we have heard repeatedly in the big story of Torah, when God rested on the seventh day after creating all things, the Creation was good and holy, but it had not yet reached its consummation. That would take human cooperation. From the beginning, human beings were representatives of God, assigned the task of multiplying, filling the earth, and subduing it. This task was, and is, no mere charade. The stakes are real. God has permitted a measure of chaos to remain in his Creation and man is responsible to deal with it in God\u2019s strength.
\nIsrael saw chaos defeated in Egypt and ultimately at the splitting of the Red Sea, when Pharaoh\u2019s armies were drowned in its waters. In the attack of Amalek, the Israelites were put on notice that chaos and evil were still at play, ready to break into their world again. Now in Parashat Ki Tetse, as they are about to enter the Promised Land, they are reminded of the same truth. The Torah has come full circle. The themes established at the beginning are still at play: God created all things from nothing, and established order in the midst of the chaos of the primordial Creation. But this order is not absolute. It is threatened by chaos, and humanity itself, even though created in the image of God, often succumbs to the chaos. Israel is chosen to overcome the chaos, to fulfill the human calling as the image of God. It must remember Amalek, especially as it stands on the threshold of the Promised Land.
\nRabbi Soloveitchik provides an additional insight into the battle against Amalek, which adds a new dimension to our reading of the grand narrative of Torah. The essential struggle takes place within.<\/p>\n
The Jew must eternally battle with this insidious enemy, the tohu vavohu which resides within each of us.\u2026 Amalek exists within everyone, and through our attempt at his destruction we at the same time endeavor to crown Hashem.<\/p>\n
The true battle is not with the other, with the enemy outside, but within ourselves. Indeed, we sometimes seek external enemies to avoid the real battle we must wage with our inner chaos and disorder. Religious believers seem particularly adept at finding enemies without and engaging in holy war rather than facing their own inner turmoil. Perhaps this is why the letter to the Hebrews tells us, \u201cFollow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord\u201d (Heb. 12:14).
\nWhether the battle is without or within, however, we do not fight it alone. Moses had Aaron and Hur standing on either side, for as Rabbi Soloveitchik says, \u201cthe task of requesting deliverance is too formidable for an individual alone.\u201d Likewise, the B\u2019rit Hadashah instructs us to \u201cwork out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure\u201d (Phil. 2:12b\u201313).
\nThe rabbis ask concerning the original battle against Amalek: \u201cDid the hands of Moses control the course of war? No! The text teaches that as long as the Israelites set their sights on High and subjected themselves to their Father in Heaven, they prevailed; other wise they failed.\u201d The battle against Amalek is the essential human struggle, sharing in the divine work of bringing order out of chaos. Yet even in this struggle, the Lord gives us the strength to prevail.<\/p>\n
For the journey: There is an Amalek without and an Amalek within. We need to address the inner chaos before we will have success against the outer. We have a divine ally in this struggle. How do we draw upon God\u2019s help as Moses did in the original battle against Amalek?<\/p>\n
ALL THINGS NEW
\nParashat Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy 26:1\u201329:8<\/p>\n
No matter how much we travel throughout the creation, no matter how many pictures we take of its flowers and mountains, no matter how much knowledge we acquire, if we fail to cultivate wonder we risk missing the very heart of what is going on.<\/p>\n
The Promised Land is \u201ca land flowing with milk and honey.\u201d This phrase reminds us of the Garden of Eden, where \u201cthe LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food\u201d (Gen. 2:9). The Promised Land flows with milk and honey\u2014its goodness arises on its own, unlike the post-Eden world, where man must toil and eat in the sweat of his brow (Gen 3:17\u201319). In the Land, God restores the abundant goodness of the Garden.<\/p>\n
For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God an always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year. (Deut. 11:10\u201312)<\/p>\n
The Torah reinforces the connection between the Promised Land and the Garden by repeating the phrase \u201cland of milk and honey\u201d\u2014three times in this week\u2019s parashah, and fifteen times throughout the Torah, in every case but one describing the Premised Land. The exception comes in Numbers 16:13, where Dathan and Abiram challenge Moses, \u201cIs it a small thing that you hive brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness?\u201d Here the land flowing with milk and honey is Egypt! The rebels reveal their perversity by describing the place that is the very opposite of the Promised Land.
\nThis exception is the eighth appearance of the phrase \u201cland of milk and honey.\u201d Seven times\u2014the number of Creation\u2014it describes the Promised Land. One time it is used to describe the opposite, the land of bondage. Then seven more times it describes the Promised Land. The lesson is that the entry to the Promised Land reflects the fullness of God\u2019s creative purpose, and the opposite of sin and bondage. It is an essential stage on the journey from Creation to completion, launched in the beginning of all things. Sin may postpone the journey, but it cannot keep the journey from reaching its goal in the end.
\nIf Israel\u2019s entry into the Land of Canaan is a reversal of the exile from the Garden, then it must also reverse the disobedience of Adam and Eve. Through Israel, humankind gains another opportunity to obey God and participate in his work of cosmic renewal. Hence, obedience becomes a dominant theme of Deuteronomy, the final series of teachings that prepare Israel to enter the Promised Land. Moses repeatedly instructs the Israelites to obey, as in this parashah: \u201cThis day the LORD your God commands you to observe these statutes and judgments; therefore you shall be careful to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul\u201d (Deut. 26:16).
\nThe Sefat Emet speaks of this call to obedience in terms not unlike Peterson\u2019s call to wonder cited above. It emphasizes the phrase \u201cThis day\u201d that opens Deuteronomy 26:16.<\/p>\n
The Midrash and Rashi both say: \u201cEach day these commands should be like new in your eyes.\u201d Why \u201clike new\u201d? \u2026 The renewal is there within everything, since God \u201crenews each day, continually, the work of Creation.\u201d \u2026 Nothing exists without the divine life-force, and the point in each thing that comes from Him never grows old, since His words are constantly alive and flowing.<\/p>\n
God\u2019s word is alive \u201cthis day\u201d and every day. We respond to it through obedience. But Moses goes on to warn Israel that they will not obey, and again, as at the beginning, the result will be exile. If Israel stumbles, the Lord warns, he will not break His covenant with them, but will impose the ultimate consequence of covenant disobedience, exile.
\nAgainst the background of Israel\u2019s exile throughout history, and especially its horrifying climax in the twentieth century, Moses\u2019 warning is haunting:<\/p>\n
Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known\u2014wood and stone. And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you. (Deut. 28:64\u201366)<\/p>\n
In exile, Israel\u2019s very survival hangs in doubt, but exile is not the final word:<\/p>\n
If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. Then the LORD your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.\u201d (Deut. 30:4\u20136)<\/p>\n
In the same way, the final word of the drama of exile in modern times is not the Holocaust. Rather, a great ingathering to the Land of Israel continues in our day. If expulsion from the Garden foreshadows the expulsion from the land of Israel, might the restoration to the land of Israel foreshadow restoration to the Garden? Such restoration, of course, will require a return to God, renewed obedience, and renewed wonder as well.
\nIn the restoration of all things, this renewal will shape everything: \u201cThen He who sat on the throne said, \u2018Behold I make all things new\u2019 \u201d (Rev. 21:5). We partake of this renewal even in our own troubled times as we let God\u2019s word shape our lives.<\/p>\n
For the journey: In our own minds, we might not link obedience with renewal and wonder, but Scripture seems to do so. Yeshua says, \u201cIf you love Me, keep My commandments\u201d (John 14:15). How does obedience to God\u2019s word help me to see the Creation, and my everyday life, in a new way?<\/p>\n
TWO RETURNEES
\nParashat Nitzavim, Deuteronomy 29:9\u201330:20<\/p>\n
And how does one repent? A sinner should abandon his sinfulness, drive it from his thoughts and conclude in his heart that he will never do it again, as it says, \u201cLet the wicked man abandon his way (Isaiah 55:7) \u2026. Additionally, he should regret the past, as it says: \u201cFor after I repented, I regretted (Jeremiah 31:18) \u2026. And let the sinner call to Him who knows all hidden things to witness that he will never return to sin that sin again. (From The Laws of Repentance by Rambam)<\/p>\n
The name of this parashah, Nitzavim, means \u201cyou are standing,\u201d as if Moses says to Israel, \u201cAfter all my warnings of exile and cursing in the preceding chapter, you are still standing. God still has a promise of mercy for you.\u201d
\nThis promise of mercy will be fulfilled when Israel returns to God, or makes teshuvah (from the Hebrew root cua shuv, meaning turn, or return). In ten verses of Parashat Nitzavim, Moses describes this teshuvah by employing the root shuv seven times:<\/p>\n
And it shall come to pass when all these things come upon you \u2026 and you shall return your heart \u2026 and return to Adonai and heed his voice \u2026 that Adonai will return your captivity \u2026 and return and gather you from all the nations where Adonai your God has scattered you. \u2026 And you shall return and heed the voice of Adonai \u2026 and Adonai will return to rejoicing over you \u2026 if you return to Adonai your God with all your hear and with all your soul. (Deut. 30:10\u201310, author\u2019s translation)<\/p>\n
In this passage, the verb shuv has two subjects; Israel must return to the Lord, of course, but the Lord also returns to Israel. In the drama of repentance there are two returnees, God and human kind. \u201c \u2018Return to Me and I will return to you\u2019, says the Lord of Hosts\u201d (Mal. 3:7).
\nSo how are we to return to God? As Rambam noted eight hundred years ago, teshuvah involves distinct phases or components. We may summarize these as recognition of sin, regret, restitution, and resolve.
\nThe first of the seven \u201creturns\u201d in Parashat Nitzavim speaks of recognition: \u201c[A]nd you shall return your heart,\u201d or more literally, \u201cyou shall return to your heart,\u201d meaning \u201ccome to your senses,\u201d or \u201ctake to heart\u201d what has happened to you. Without this inner awakening, there can be no return to God. Rambam compares this dramatic recognition to the wake-up call of the shofar at Rosh HaShanah:<\/p>\n
The blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is an explicit decree of Scripture [Lev. 23:24; Num. 29:1], and it is also a symbol, as if to say, Awake, O you sleepers, awake from your sleep! O you slumberers, awake from your slumber! Search your deeds and turn in teshuvah. Remember your Creator, O you who forget the truth in the vanities of time and go astray all the year after vanity and folly that neither profit nor save. Look to your souls, and better your ways and actions. Let every one of you abandon his evil way and his wicked thoughts, which are not good.<\/p>\n
This wake up call leads to regret. Modern people often see regret itself as the problem, rather than as an indicator that something else is a problem. Instead of denying such feelings, however, we are to let them drive us to genuine moral change, which will be expressed in restitution, doing all we can to reverse the effect of our sin. Restitution often includes confession of sin.<\/p>\n
And he must also confess with his lips and declare those things that he has concluded in his heart. If one confesses verbally but does not resolve in his heart to abandon his sinful ways, he is like one who immerses himself in the ritual bath while holding an impure creature.<\/p>\n
Restitution may also mean paying back a debt, returning to the one that we have offended and offering to do whatever it takes to make things right.<\/p>\n
Regret and restitution lead us to a fourth stage of teshuvah mentioned above\u2014resolve to turn away from sin and back to God and his ways. Resolve means changing our direction from wrongdoing and back to God and his ways. \u201cYou shall return to Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul.\u201d
\nWe can see these four stages of teshuvah\u2014recognition, regret, restitution, and resolve\u2014in a story that Messiah once told, about a man and his two sons (Luke 15:11\u201332).
\nOne day the younger son said to his father,<\/p>\n
\u201cFather, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.\u201d So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself \u2026<\/p>\n
Here we see the first phase of teshuvah, recognition. The son came to himself, or returned to his heart, as our parashah would state it. He woke up and realized that he was standing among the pigs, and longing for their food! And so, when he recognized his condition,<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cHow many of my father\u2019s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, \u2018Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.\u201d \u2019 And he arose and came to his father.<\/p>\n
The son displays regret for his sin and is ready to make restitution by returning to his father, confessing his sins, and offering to live with him like a hired servant. Finally, he resolves to return, changing his whole life direction from a journey away from home to a journey back.
\nThe most remarkable element in Yeshua\u2019s story, however, is the response of the father. It reveals a fifth stage in teshuvah, which is restoration. The son comes to his senses and returns to his father; the father has been ready to return to the son all along.<\/p>\n
But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, \u201cFather, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.\u201d But the father said to his servants, \u201cBring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.\u201d And they began to be merry.<\/p>\n
Thus, the father embodies the words of the prophet, \u201cReturn to me and I will return to you.\u201d But the story doesn\u2019t end here. Messiah told the story because \u201c[t]he tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, \u2018This man receives sinners and eats with them\u2019 \u201d (Luke 15:1\u20132). Messiah welcomed the younger son\u2014the sinner\u2014and, with equal love, appealed to the older son\u2014the religious expert<\/p>\n
Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, \u201cYour brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.\u201d \u2019 But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, \u201cLo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.\u201d And he said to him, \u201cSon, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeshua doesn\u2019t tell us the end of the story, because the end is up to us. So, whichever son you are, the invitation from the Father stands: \u201cReturn to me and I will return to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the journey: We need to practice teshuvah, continually turning back to God and his ways. We also need to rejoice as others make teshuvah, and not begrudge the bounties of God\u2019s forgiveness to anyone. Am I ready to return to God\u2014and to welcome those who return as well?<\/p>\n
THE HIDDEN GOD
\nParashat Vayelekh, Deuteronomy 31<\/p>\n
Where is Esther indicated in the Torah?\u2014In the verse, And I will surely hide [asteer] my face.<\/p>\n
The sages of the Talmud look for a reference to Esther in the Torah and find it among the warnings of exile in Parashat Vayelekh: \u201cAnd I will ride, yes hide my face\u201d (Deut. 31:18). In Hebrew this phrase reads, anochi haster asteer panai. Asteer\u2014\u201chide\u201d\u2014sounds like the name Esther, and the phrase \u201chide the face\u201d describes the conditions of Israel\u2019s long exile, which dominate her story.
\nPurim, the holiday based on the story of Esther, comes a month before Passover in the Jewish calendar. Passover, the holiday of freedom leads to Israel\u2019s inheritance of the Promised Land. Purim, in contrast, is the holiday of exile. At Passover, God revealed himself openly both to Israel and to Egypt by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. At Purim, God hid his face, and the story of deliverance is filled with irony and paradox. Mordecai, the hero, advises Esther to hide her Jewish identity to marry an impetuous and foolish Gentile king. Haman, the villain, is a bungler who habitually shows up at the wrong time and becomes trapped in his own evil schemes. The Passover story is majestic; Purim is farcical. Yet both holidays celebrate a miraculous deliverance by God and are instituted as days of remembrance forever.
\nPurim helps us to understand God\u2019s warning that he will hide his face and understand Israel\u2019s subsequent history, which the final chapters of Deuteronomy describe. As the festival of exile, it also provides a perspective on our own day.
\nThe God who works to make himself known throughout Torah hide his face in the book of Esther. Thus, as numerous commentators have noted, the name of God appears not even once in the story. In contrast, the Passover story begins with the Lord revealing himself visibly to Moses in the Burning Bush. Its goal is that \u201cyou shall know that I am HASHEM your God\u201d (Exod. 6:7), and that \u201cthe Egyptians will know that I am HASHEM\u201d (Exod. 7:5).
\nParadoxically, one contemporary rabbi, Isaac Greenberg, says of the comparison between Passover and Purim that \u201cthe holiday of Purim represents a great step forward in the history of revelation.\u201d Why does he see Purim as a step forward? Rabbinic Judaism emphasizes free will, and the responsibility to preserve Torah though all difficulties, even when divine help is not at all evident. In this view, Purim is a step forward because human responsibility is more evident than divine intervention.
\nPassover initiated an entire age of Jewish history that finally ended with the destruction of the Temple and the crushing of Jewish sovereignty by the Romans in the first and second centuries of our era. Purim originated before the destruction of the Temple but it symbolizes the age inaugurated by that horrendous event. The first age began with a crisis of redemption, Passover; the second age, symbolized by Purim, began with a crisis of destruction.
\nIn modern times we have witnessed a re-enactment of these two crises, but in reverse order; first the destruction of European Jewry under the Nazis, and then redemption\u2014the restoration of Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel. These events, especially coming at the same moment of history, seem nearly as significant as the events described in Scripture. Greenberg argues that these events mirror Purim more than Passover, that God\u2019s face remains hidden, even though redemption is evident.<\/p>\n
Purim is the holiday for the post-Holocaust world; it is the model for the experience of redemption in the rebirth of Israel. In this era, too, the redemption is flawed\u2014by the narrow escape, by the great loss of life, by the officially \u201cirreligious\u201d nature of the leadership, by the mixed motives and characters of those who carried it out, by the human suffering it brought in its wake, and by the less-than-perfect society of Israel.<\/p>\n
In the post-Holocaust world, God\u2019s face may remain hidden, but there has been a resurgence of the most traditional, God-centered branches of Judaism, and the rise of a viable Messianic Jewish community. For Messianic Jews, and many traditional Jews as well, the restoration of Israel, even with all its problems, is not so much a flawed redemption as an open intervention of the divine, a modern replay of the Exodus from Egypt.
\nParashat Vayelekh warns that God will hide his face because of our sins, but it sounds a note of hope as well. After Moses records its warnings, he inaugurates Joshua as Israel\u2019s new leader with words from the Lord: \u201cBe strong and of good courage; for you shall bring the children of Israel into the land of which I swore to them, and I will be with you\u201d (Deut. 31:23).
\nOur times are filled with hiddenness and with hope. Purim and Passover converge. God intervenes in our affairs, but in ways that seem obscure. Israel has been restored, yet we remain in exile. Human beings seem to be in charge, but evidence of God\u2019s redemptive purposes abounds to those who look for it. In this era, God speaks through paradox, perhaps even the great paradox of a Jewish Messiah ignored by the Jewish world for twenty centuries.<\/p>\n
He will not quarrel nor cry out,
\nNor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.
\nA bruised reed He will not break,
\nAnd smoking flax He will not quench,
\nTill He sends forth justice to victory;
\nAnd in His name Gentiles will trust. (Matt. 12:19\u201321)<\/p>\n
Matthew quotes this prophecy of Isaiah to portray a hidden Messiah who will reveal himself to those looking for him in this age and beyond. Indeed, in this Messiah, God\u2019s face is hidden no longer: \u201cFor it is the God who once said, \u2018Let light shine out of darkness,\u2019 who has made his light shine in our hearts, the light of the knowledge of God\u2019s glory shining in the face of the Messiah Yeshua\u201d (2 Cor. 4:6, CJB).<\/p>\n
For the journey: Esther and Mordecai lived in a time when God hid his face, yet they were agents of God\u2019s purpose for the whole Jewish people. Is it possible that God is doing the same thing today\u2014working among us when we cannot even see him? How do we co-operate with God\u2019s purposes in such conditions?<\/p>\n
TORAH AND SPIRIT
\nParashat Ha\u2019azinu, Deuteronomy 32<\/p>\n
Levi [a young Hasidic rabbi] doesn\u2019t teach Torah in any structured way to the addicts he works with, but he brings Judaism into every counseling session by talking about the value of life and what that person can contribute. \u201cI explain to them that they\u2019re not nothing. \u2026 I tell them, \u2018God created this world as an imperfect place. He implanted a piece of Himself in each one of us, and there\u2019s one part of this world that will not be perfect until you make it so. It\u2019s out there waiting for you.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
As Moses completes the writing of the Torah, he knows that his death is near, so he writes a song warning Israel of their future sins and that \u201cevil will befall you in the latter days\u201d (Deut. 31:29). Songs in the Torah, say the rabbis, transcend time, and look into the past, present, and future. Thus, Moses\u2019 song, which peers into the future, also looks back to the very beginning, thus providing a framework for the entire Torah.
\nWhere does the song refer to the beginning? Two verses contain a clue:<\/p>\n
He found him in the wilderness land,
\nin the waste of the howling desert.
\nHe encircled him, gave mind to him,
\nwatched him like the apple of His eye.
\nLike an eagle who rouses his nest,
\nover his fledglings he hovers,
\nHe spread His wings, He took him,
\nHe bore him on His pinion. (Deut. 32:10\u201311, Alter; emphasis added)<\/p>\n
Two Hebrew words appear only in these verses and one other place in the entire Torah, Genesis 1:2, highlighting again the big story of Creation to completion.
\nThe first of the two special words in this verse is tohu, translated as \u201cwaste.\u201d As we have seen, Genesis 1:2 opens, \u201cAnd the earth was tohu vavohu\u2014chaos and void,\u201d or \u201cwild and waste\u201d (Fox). This rarely used word describes the chaos of Creation in its primitive state, out of which God will form the beauty and goodness of heaven and earth.
\nThe Midrash also notices the unusual word \u201cwaste\u201d in this passage.<\/p>\n
Consider the verse, He found him in a desert land\u2026 for the world was a desert before Israel came out of Egypt. And in the waste, a howling wilderness; waste and howling was the world before Israel came out of Egypt and before they received the Torah. He did not tarry, but as soon as Israel departed from Egypt and received the Torah, what does Scripture say? He compassed him about, He gave him understanding, He kept him as the apple of His eye. \u2018He compassed him about\u2019 [or \u2018he encircled him\u2019 as above] means that He set clouds of glory around them.<\/p>\n
Just as tohu or \u201cwaste\u201d describes the unformed state of the heave ns and earth at the beginning of Creation, so it describes the unformed state of the world before the revelation at Mount Sinai. As we have seen, the redemption from Egypt is a new Creation that begins to restore the order of the original Creation.
\nNot only Israel, but ultimately all followers of Messiah fit into this vast scheme of cosmic restoration. As Levi the Torah teacher says, \u201cThere\u2019s one part of this world that will not be perfect until you make it so. It\u2019s out there waiting for you.\u201d
\nBut how are we able to find this part, and join with the Creator in his work of renewal?
\nThe Midrash above detects a remez, or hint, that will help answer this question when it says \u201cHe set clouds of glory around\u201d Israel. Where does it get this idea?
\nThis question brings us to our second repeated word, \u201chovers\u201d or yarachef\u2014\u201dover his fledglings he hovers.\u201d The same verb appear in slightly different form in Genesis 1:2: \u201cThe spirit of God hovered (m\u2019rachefet) over the face of the deep.\u201d Genesis portrays this spirit as the creative, life-giving breath of God, about to bring forth life and order from the great deep. This same Spirit of God, present at Creation to bring order out of chaos, is present in the glory-cloud that accompanies the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt. As Isaiah writes:<\/p>\n
Then he remembered the days of old, Moses and his people, saying:
\n\u201cWhere is He who brought them up out of the sea
\nWith the shepherd of His flock?
\nWhere is He who put His Holy Spirit within [or among] them? (Isa. 63:11, 14)<\/p>\n
The same idea appears in the book of Nehemiah:<\/p>\n
Yet in Your manifold mercies You did not forsake them in the wilderness.
\nThe pillar of the cloud did not depart from them by day,
\nTo lead them on the road;
\nNor the pillar of fire by night,
\nTo show them light,
\nAnd the way they should go.
\nYou also gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. (Neh. 9:19\u201320a)<\/p>\n
The Spirit of God, which appears at the very beginning as the divine creative force bringing order out of tohu vavohu (the wild and waste of the primordial chaos), accompanies Israel in the pillar of cloud. This divine presence not only guides Israel in its wanderings, but also dwells in the tabernacle in the midst of the camp of Israel. The connection is clear: the work begun at Creation continues in Israel as the chosen people. God redeems the seed of Abraham from the bondage of Egypt to establish his creative and renewing presence among them. He will lead Israel by his Spirit, and dwell in the midst of the camp of Israel in a cloud of glory. Thus, the call of Israel is an essential stage in the journey from Creation to completion.
\nWhether we are Jewish or Gentile, as we seek to find our part in this journey, there is a clear message for us as well. The same creative, life-giving spirit dwells among the community of those united with Messiah Yeshua. \u201cFor it was by one Spirit that we were all immersed into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free; and we were all given the one Spirit to drink (1 Cor. 12:13).<\/p>\n
For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
\nI will dwell in them
\nAnd walk among them.
\nI will be their God,
\nAnd they shall be My people. (2 Cor. 6:16)<\/p>\n
The Spirit of God dwells in the midst of those who follow Messiah. Through his power, we find and fulfill our part on the way to Creation fulfilled.<\/p>\n
For the journey: Levi, the young rabbi, says \u201cThere\u2019s one part of this world that will not be perfect until you make it so. It\u2019s out there waiting or you.\u201d May I be on the watch for this part of the world today.<\/p>\n
\u201cTHIS IS THE BLESSING\u2026\u201d
\nParashat V\u2019zot HaBrachah, Deuteronomy 33:1\u201334:12<\/p>\n
Favor them, Oh Lord, with happiness and peace.
\nOh, hear our Sabbath prayer. Amen.<\/p>\n
Just as the six days of Creation conclude with the blessing of Shabbat, so the Torah itself, the story of Creation to completion, concludes with a blessing. Moses stands before the tribes of Israel, who are about to enter the land of promise without him, and pronounces blessings upon them, as the final act of his public life.
\nWe might consider all of chapter 33 to be the blessing, beginning with Moses\u2019 words over the first of the twelve tribes, \u201cLet Reuben live, and not die.\u201d (Deut. 33:6) Sforno, however, in his comments on this chapter, claims that the blessing does not begin until verse 25. In the preceding verses, Moses prays for each of the tribes, one by one, but, says Sforno, \u201cwords of blessing are always said when speaking directly to the one who is being blessed.\u201d Therefore, he believes that the blessing begins as Moses addresses Israel directly, concluding with the words,<\/p>\n
Happy are you, O Israel!
\nWho is like you, a people saved by the LORD,
\nThe shield of your help
\nAnd the sword of your majesty!
\nYour enemies shall submit to you,
\nAnd you shall tread down their high places. (Deut. 33:29)<\/p>\n
Before this passage, Moses speaks of the tribes; now he speaks to the tribes. Before, he speaks almost entirely in the third person, calling each tribe \u201che.\u201d Now, he speaks in the second person, addressing the tribes directly as \u201cyou.\u201d If we accept Sforno\u2019s conclusion that the blessing begins at verse 25, we notice another significant shift in emphasis. Before this verse, Moses speaks to each tribe separately; now he speaks to the all the tribes at once.
\nHere is a theme that plays throughout Scripture: Unity brings blessing. Moses can pray for the tribes separately, but blessing will rest upon them collectively, when they dwell together as one. This interpretation is borne out by verse 5:<\/p>\n
And He was King in Jeshurun,
\nWhen the leaders of the people were gathered,
\nAll the tribes of Israel together.<\/p>\n
Jeshurun, or more accurately Yeshurun, is the name of Israel as the Israel people of God, based on the root rah yashar, meaning upright, pleasing, or straight. When Israel gathers as one, they become Yeshurun, the upright people whose king is the Lord himself. As Rashi comments (on Deut. 33:5), \u201cWhen they are gathered together in a single group and there is peace among them, He is their king, but not when there is discord among them.\u201d
\nA recent biography of Benjamin Franklin notes that he advocated unity among the British colonies in North America long before he advocated their independence. As a pragmatist, Franklin saw that the colonies could accomplish far more together than they could separately. When the colonies were threatened by French military successes in the Ohio River Valley in 1754\u2014twenty-two years before the Declaration of Independence\u2014Franklin printed \u2018the first and most famous editorial cartoon in American history: a snake cut into pieces, labeled with the names of the colonies, with the caption, \u2018Join, or Die.\u2019 \u201d
\nLikewise, the tribes of Israel struggled for centuries to unite for military defense and improved commerce, from the time of the Judges until the rise of Saul and David. Beyond the pragmatic considerations of defense and trade, however, is the blessing that comes upon unity. Moses might well have said to the tribes, \u201cJoin, or Die \u2026without the full blessing that God intends.\u201d The blessing that God imparts through Moses is far more powerful than Israel\u2019s united military strength. With the blessing, they will become a people under the divine shelter and sustained by the arms of the eternal One, \u201ca people saved by the LORD.\u201d
\nV\u2019zot HaBrachah is the parashah read in the synagogue on the festival of Simchat Torah, or \u201cRejoicing in Torah.\u201d On this day, just after Sukkot, we reach the end of the annual cycle of readings at Deuteronomy 34, and start over again at Genesis 1. Thus, we express a value that has unified Israel through its history, and may bring unity today as well. In V\u2019zot HaBrachah, Moses reminds Israel of God\u2019s revelation at Mount Sinai a generation before. There,<\/p>\n
Moses commanded Torah for us,
\nA heritage of the congregation of Jacob. (Deut. 33:4)<\/p>\n
This heritage is the Scriptures, beginning with the Five Books a of Moses and becoming the complete canon, which for believers in Yeshua includes the writings of the B\u2019rit Hadashah. In Messiah, it becomes the heritage of all nations as well as of the Jewish people.
\nThe community of Yeshua\u2019s followers encompasses diverse streams and traditions, but we have a potent source of unity: the Scriptures themselves, the source of the life-changing story of Creation fulfilled. We may read these Scriptures differently, but we are united in seeing them as divine revelation, and we are united in seeing that this revelation reaches its culmination in Yeshua the Messiah, the Living Torah. This affirmation of the whole body of Scripture that rests on the foundation of Torah, and of Yeshua as Lord and Messiah, is a unique and precious legacy. May we not abandon the blessing of unity carelessly, but instead build upon this legacy.
\nThe Torah concludes with a blessing to remind us that it began with a blessing. When God created man and woman in his image, before they had done anything to merit it, he blessed them. Now, as Israel is about to enter the Promised Land, before they have fulfilled God\u2019s purpose, he imparts a blessing again. As Yeshua\u2019s friend Peter wrote, \u201c[K]now that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing\u201d (1 Pet. 3:9).<\/p>\n
For the journey: Torah concludes with a blessing, and so do all the Scriptures that arise from it. May we who read and study these words inherit a blessing as well: \u201cBlessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city\u201d (Rev. 22:7, 14).<\/p>\n
EPILOGUE<\/p>\n
\u201cTurn it, and turn it, for everything is in it. Reflect on it and grow old and gray with it. Don\u2019t turn from it, for nothing is better than it.\u201d (Pirke Avot 5.22)<\/p>\n
When an author finishes a book, I imagine he or she hopes to have included everything that is relevant to the subject at hand, and to have left nothing out. In my case, however, the opposite is true. I could go through the entire cycle of Torah readings again and discover endless material that has been left out of this book. God gave us his Torah to be our life-long text of learning and growth, and it rewards multiple readings.
\nAs we saw in Parashat Masa\u2019ei, when we finish a book of the Torah, we encourage each other with the words Hazak! Hazak! v\u2019nit\u2019chazek! Be strong! Be strong! And let us be strengthened! [to carry out the instructions we have just read]. That\u2019s why on Simchat Torah, the festival when we rejoice at having received this book of instruction, we immediately read Genesis 1, after concluding Deuteronomy 34. We start learning again.
\nThis is my encouragement to you as well. Keep journeying by studying the Scriptures, seeking within them not only inspiration and truth, but also instruction for life. A life that is guided by the age-old wisdom of Scripture will be fruitful and fulfilling.
\nThe instruction above to \u201cTurn it, and turn it\u201d supports the tradition of reading through the entire Torah each year. Whether or not you follow this specific tradition, however, I encourage you to practice daily study of God\u2019s Word.
\nAnother old saying tells us to work as if it all depends on us, and pray as if it all depends on God. We know that it all really does depend on God, but our efforts are significant, as well. Indeed, the theme of Creation to Completion is that God has designed things from the beginning to involve human beings like you and me in his redemptive purposes for the world.
\nThese two old sayings come together in this: We have a vital role to play during our days on earth, and it is in continual engagement with Scripture that we discover our part, and find the power to fulfill it.
\nThank you for letting me have input into your life-long journey. May the Lord bless you and keep you.<\/p>\n
GLOSSARY<\/p>\n
Adonai. Hebrew for \u201cLord.\u201d In many instances it serves as a substitute for the ineffable name of God, spelled with the four Hebrew letters \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 or YHVH.
\nAggadah. From the verb \u201cto tell.\u201d Stories, legends, anecdotes, and sayings in the Talmud, Midrash, and other rabbinic literature, often based on the narrative of the Torah, that illustrate biblical truths.
\nAmidah. From the Hebrew for \u201cstanding,\u201d this is a series of blessings recited daily in traditional prayer services.
\nB\u2019rit Hadashah. Hebrew for \u201cNew Covenant,\u201d used as an alternate name for the New Testament.
\nCohen. A priest, a member of the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron, who performed essential rituals in the tabernacle and temple. Jewish tradition has retained special roles for cohanim (plural of cohen) until this day.
\nG\u2019milut hasadim. Deeds of loving kindness, such as visiting the sick, burying the dead, or attending a wedding, which Jewish thought considers foundational to a righteous life.
\nGematria. The study of the numerical values of Hebrew letters and words.
\nHalakhah. From the verb \u201cto go,\u201d Halakhah refers to the body of rulings derived from Torah that have shaped the Jewish \u201cwalk\u201d or way of life since the earliest times.
\nHashem. Literally \u201cthe name.\u201d This is a circumlocution for the unpronounceable name of God, spelled \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 or YHVH.
\nHoshana Rabbah. \u201cThe great Hosanna.\u201d The final day of Sukkot or Tabernacles, which concludes the festival with great rejoicing.
\nHuppah. The canopy under which the bride and groom stand to exchange vows in the traditional Jewish wedding.
\nIbn Ezra, Abraham. Born in Tudela, Spain, in 1089, he spent his later years wandering throughout the Mediterranean world and died in 1164. A poet and thinker as well as Torah scholar, his commentary was second only to Rashi\u2019s in popularity, but today much of it has been lost.
\nKetubah. A marriage contract signed by the bride and groom in the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony.
\nLevi. A Levite or member of the tribe of Levi, which was charged with the care and performance of tabernacle and temple ritual.
\nMidrash. An interpretation of the text of Scripture, often highly imaginative, seeking to bring out meaning beyond the plain sense. Midrash employs word play, verbal echoes, context, and other literary qualities in creative ways. The plural is midrashim.
\nMidrash Rabbah. A collection of midrashim on the five books of Moses and the five megillot or scrolls (Esther, Ruth, Lamentations, Song of Songs, and Kohelet [Eccelesiastes]), which was compiled beginning in the early fifth century CE, but contains older material as well.
\nMishnah. A collection of Jewish laws and legal discussions compiled in about 200 CE by Rabbi Judah the Prince. Later commentaries on the Mishnah are comprised in Gemara. Mishnah plus Gemara form the Talmud.
\nMitzvot. Hebrew for \u201ccommandments\u201d given by God.
\nParashah. One of the 54 weekly portions of the Torah, which together constitute the weekly reading cycle. Each parashah has a title, usually based on one of the first words in that lection. When the term parashah is combined with the specific name of the section, its form changes slightly according to the rules of Hebrew grammar. Hence, we say Parashat B\u2019resheet (\u201cIn the beginning\u201d), not Parashah B\u2019resheet. The plural form is parashiyot.
\nPesach. Known in English as Passover, the holiday that celebrates the Exodus from Egypt.
\nRambam. Acronym for Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, or Maimonides, the premier Jewish figure of the Middle Ages. He was born in Cordoba, Spain, in 1135, but spent most of his adult life in Egypt, where he served as a physician, adviser to the sultan, and Jewish community leader, as well as writing extensively on Scripture, Jewish law, and philosophy. He died in 1204.
\nRamban. Acronym for Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, or Nachmanides, born in Spain in 1195. Ramban wrote extensively in many fields, including Torah. He participated in the most famous of the disputations that the Catholic Church forced upon medieval rabbis, the Barcelona disputation of 1263, after which he found it prudent to leave Spain for Israel, where he died in 1270.
\nRosh HaShanah. Hebrew for \u201cHead of the Year.\u201d The traditional Jewish New Year, which is the beginning of a ten-day period of repentance leading up to Yom Kippur (Lev. 23:23\u201324).
\nRashi. Acronym for Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac, born in Troyes, France in 1040. His Torah commentary brings together the best of earlier commentaries and remains definitive to this day. He also produced a definitive commentary on the Talmud, even as he made his living tending several vineyards that he owned. He lived through a period of mounting anti-Jewish persecution in France and Germany, especially in his later years, and died in 1105.
\nShechinah. From the verb \u201cto dwell.\u201d This post-biblical rabbinic term refers to the glorious presence of God, especially as it appears on an earthly plane.
\nSeder. Hebrew for \u201corder.\u201d Refers to the order of the ritual meal eaten at Passover to remember the Exodus from Egypt.
\nSefat Emet. \u201cThe language of truth,\u201d a nineteenth-century rabbinic commentary on the Torah by Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, in Poland.
\nSeptuagint. The ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures widely used during Yeshua\u2019s time, it is the source of many of the quotations from the Tanakh (Old Testament) that appear in the B\u2019rit Hadashah (New Testament).
\nSforno. Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno, born in Cesena, Italy, around 1470. He studied philosophy, mathematics, philology, and medicine in Rome, and became a physician. He is best known for his commentary on the Torah.
\nShabbat. Hebrew for \u201c[day of] rest; Sabbath.\u201d Shabbat is the seventh day of the week, lasting from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. God commanded Israel to cease from work on this day and to assemble for worship (Exod. 20:8\u201311; Lev. 23:3).
\nShavuot. The Feast of Weeks, falling forty-nine days, or a \u201cweek of weeks\u201d after Passover. It celebrates the grain harvest, which takes place in the late Spring or early Summer in the land of Israel (Lev. 23:15\u201321). According to tradition, it also marks the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. It was during Shavuot that the Holy Spirit was poured out after the resurrection of Messiah (Acts 2).
\nShofar. The trumpet made of a ram\u2019s horn that appears throughout Scripture as an instrument of alarm, proclamation, and praise. It is used to this day in Jewish worship, particularly on Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year.
\nSiddur. The traditional Jewish prayer book. References from the Siddur are the author\u2019s translation, compared with traditional sources.
\nSukkot. The Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, commemorating Israel\u2019s forty years in the desert before entering the Promised and. During this period, Israel was vulnerable to the elements and fully dependent on God, a reality symbolized by their dwelling in sukkot (Lev. 23:33\u201343; Deut. 8).
\nTalmud. The vast collection of discussions of Torah and its laws, which was committed to writing, first in the Land of Israel in the fifth century, and then in Babylon a century later. The Talmud contains both Halakhah, which comprises discussions of legal requirements based on the text of Scripture, and Aggadah, which comprises stories, legends, anecdotes, and sayings that expand and illustrate biblical principle.
\nTalmid, talmidim (pl.). The Hebrew term for disciples, based on the root lmd, meaning to learn or teach.
\nTanakh. An acronym for the Hebrew Scriptures comprising Torah, Nevi\u2019im or Prophets, and Ketuvim or Holy Writings. These books are the same as in the Christian Old Testament, although in a different order. Messianic Jews and other students of Scripture tend to avoid the term Old Testament because it implies antiquation or obsolescence.
\nTish\u2019ah B\u2019Av. The ninth day of the month of Av, a date that commemorates the greatest tragedies in Jewish history, including the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem.
\nTikkun Olam, or simply Tikkun. A Hebrew phrase meaning \u201crepair\u201d or \u201crestoration of the world.\u201d This refers to various practices and activities that reverse the cycle of sin and corruption in the created order, and contribute to the fulfillment of God\u2019s purposes for Creation.
\nTorah. From a Hebrew root meaning \u201cinstruction.\u201d Torah refers primarily to the Five Books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy, but is sometimes used to apply to the entire body of Scripture, or to the body of rabbinic commentary and writing that arose out of discussions on the Five Books of Moses. Torah is best understood not as law, but as an extended instruction that includes poetic and historic narratives, detailed ordinances for all aspects of the life of Israel, and broad ethical principles as well.
\nYeshiva. The traditional Jewish study hall, in which students learn Torah, Talmud and other rabbinic literature in an informal, highly interactive, and intensive fashion.
\nYeshua. Hebrew for \u201cAdonai (the Lord) saves.\u201d Yeshua is Jesus\u2019 Hebrew name.
\nYon HaShoah. Holocaust Remembrance Day, which occurs in the Spring, shortly after Passover.
\nYom Kippur. Hebrew for \u201cDay of Atonement.\u201d The holiest day of the Jewish calendar; a fast day, the culmination of a ten-day period of repentance and prayer for the forgiveness of sin (Lev. 16; 23:26\u201332).<\/p>\n
BIBLIOGRAPHY<\/p>\n
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\u05d5\u05d9\u05e7\u05e8\u05d0 THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS Leviticus is the heart of Torah. Named for its opening word, \u05d5\u05d9\u05e7\u05e8\u05d0 (Vayikra), meaning \u201cAnd he called,\u201d it is the third book, the midpoint of the Five Books of Moses. Leviticus is the only one of the Five Books that takes place entirely at the foot of Mount Sinai. It … <\/p>\n