Adat Yeshua Weekly Commentaries
Post List
The point of Pinchas
Balaam may have failed to curse Israel, but he did not give up. If he couldn’t control God, he would at least get the Israelites to fall away from God. The rot from within is always more powerful than from without. He advised them to commit idolatry with the Midianite women (ref: Numbers 31:16 and Revelation 2:14. In the judgement that followed, some 24,000 people died; stopped only by the…
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Keeping up Appearances
One of my favourite TV comedy series was “Keeping up Appearances”, with Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet!). The title says it all – appearances can and do fool people. Perhaps we think leaders are most guilty of this; we look at them and say “God is using them” but so often our eyes can deceive us. But we’re all prone to the disease of external righteousness, the need to appear bigger…
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Are we nearly there yet?
How many parents get tired of hearing that one?! The 40 years of wandering are soon to be over, the camp of Israel is close to the borders of the Promised Land, they are almost there and so what happens? Throw a party to celebrate this achievement? No,they grumble and complain, murmur against G-d and attack Moshe and Aharon! In Numbers (B’midbar) 20:4-5 we read the questions being asked:…
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Swallowed up
Forty years of wandering in the wilderness had just begun after the community’s unbelief and lack of faith upon hearing the report of the ten faithless spies prevented them entering into the promised Land. This portion focuses on Korach and is named after him because he is so important to learn from: he is our role model of how NOT to behave in the Kingdom. The children of Israel are…
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Parashat Sh’lach
Parashat Shelach (Send) – the sending out of the 12 spies to spy out the land and plan for its capture and settlement. The resultant report upon their return led the people of Israel into a 40 year diversion, one year for every day of faithlessness. However, God’s plans are never thwarted or diverted; in this case, Israel was settled but by a different generation. The passage begins with ‘sh’lach…
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Parashat Beha’alotcha
Moving on and holding back Welcome back to the season in Torah that highlights our complaining in the desert! ‘Give me meat!’ I know what’s good for me and it’s not this! With these words the events of the next few Shabbat portions unfold with an almost inevitable consequential development. We find Israel a year into the journey, having spent 1 year at Sinai and now setting off, but already…
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The Hallmarks of Blessing
The portion this week begins with the command ‘nas et-rosh bnai gershon’: ‘lift up the heads of the sons of Gershon’. This lifting up is of course translated as taking a census, a counting or reckoning of the numbers of men ready to be used in the transportation of the Mishkan and the holy articles. As in all the things of God, everything is exact and designed. Israel was called…
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Wilderness
The portion begins with ‘in the wilderness or desert’. One year after receiving the Torah at Sinai we begin to move on into the next 39 years of wandering through a barren land. We had come out of Egypt (a metaphor for the world’s system) and headed to decision day, our meeting with G-d at Sinai, where we chose to follow (or as the early responses to G-d revealed- rebel…
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Matters of the heart
Our portion opens with the teachings surrounding the Yovel year and Shmittah: how the Land needs to rest from our labours and we learn that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word spoken by God. It is trust and faith that bring life; the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. In the Haftarah, this message continues: Israel was about to be exiled and the…
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Parashat Emor
Parashat Emor states the broad design for God’s people: “Be ye holy as I am holy”. Indeed we learn a profound lesson – repeated for us twice here in Leviticus 21:8 and 22:32-33 – that it is God Himself who makes us holy. He is intimately involved in the process and status of our sanctity; as with so many areas of our faith, we discover that everything comes from Him,…
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Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Reactive Land This double portion focuses completely on redressing the balance after the death of Nadav and Avihu and their sin of presumption, a presumption that God would accept anything they did and the inherent dangers of the people being taught the wrong thing due to their actions if not words. The long section on holiness naturally flows from this event, a corrective reminder of the path of righteousness, a…
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Influences (Parashat Metzora)
In the Haftorah portion attached to Metzora the thematic link of the skin afflictions caused by sin, in particular the sin of lashon hara (gossip, slander) is carried forward and developed into a real life event. Four leprous men star during a time when famine had engulfed Samaria and they in turn bring about a turning point in the conflict with the Syrian army. The critical issue though here is…
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Parashat Tazria
Leprosy, a bit of a sore issue? This whole section seems so yucky and earthy to our modern sensitivities that we almost think it has to be consigned to the ‘olden days’. How do we even begin to connect with a section which talks about discharges and emissions, how these make you unclean? What about the uncleanness itself as a concept? Is this merely ritual, sin orientated or spiritual too?…
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Righteous Fire
Righteous Fire Let me ask you a searching question. Apart from the Lord, what is the defining feature you automatically think of when you think of Judaism? Is Torah the most important thing, theme and concept we are meant to hold and cherish? I think actually if we consider the space devoted to the Mishkan and the constant and ongoing offerings there, the structure and numbers of priests and their…
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Parashat Tzav: Great at being Ungrateful
The Temple was not a ‘nice’ place to be. It was a bloody and smelly place, not the place for the squeamish, blood was everywhere. There were burning corpses of animals already lifted up and offered as sacrifices to G-d, their blood draining away into the gullies and drains around the altar. Blood, and the sacrifices generally, were core to the daily work in the Mishkan and later Temple. Sacrifices…
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Parashat Vayikra
The bloody path of returning to G-d Jewish children of five years old begin their Torah study with this book, otherwise known as the Torat Cohanim, the Torah for the Priests. How ghastly to start with something as horrific and bloodthirsty as animal sacrifices! Surely we should begin with the Creation, or the building of the Mishkan, something visual and hands on. But no, it begins with sacrifices. And don’t…
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Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei
Why His way is not our way There are three themes that link together in this portion: The commandments about Shabbat, the freewill offerings given by the people and the building of the Mishkan. Why start this set of three with Shabbat? Interestingly Adam and Chava’s life after they were created began with Shabbat. Man’s thinking would be to start with the first working day of the week, but no,…
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Idolatry
It had all started so well, a dramatic departure from Egypt, the parting of the Reed Sea, the miracles of deliverance and redemption still vibrating in the communal memory, G-d had acted to set us free! Moshe had gone up to receive the teachings we were now to live by, and then… tragedy strikes. Just how did we get from the amazing spiritual highs of the Exodus and Sinai to…
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His Design Alone
There are a number of key themes running through the building and equipping of the Mishkan (tabernacle), the altar with its incense and impact on the senses designed to remind us of the need for constant prayer, and the eternal light filling the area with light indicative of G-d’s presence eternally with us. We also now read of commandments to make garments for Aaron, for the priesthood. The Mishkan in…
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God’s Blueprint
Nothing in the universe is left up to chance. We do not live in an unpredictable, unplanned cosmos wrought by the hidden uncontrolled hand of statistical randomness. The universe, all creation, runs according to the rules set down by the only God, of Avraham Yitzchak and Ya’akov. It is not a cold unfathomable place, hostile to humanity, far from it. It is a warm and above all righteous place perfectly…
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