Adat Yeshua Weekly Commentaries
Post List
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…
Read More
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?…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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,…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
Parashat Mishpatim (Judgements)
Commanded Holiness Last week Moshe stood on the mountain of the Lord receiving the Torah; the fire, the smoke, the physical manifestations of the Lord’s presence! This week we’ve moved from that awesome encounter with God where He gave us the first of His commandments, to the total apparent mundane instructions of how to live and behave in certain situations! Just as we were feeling so close to God, we…
Read More
Parashat Yitro
The Commanded Life We’re back to Yitro again; this is the portion I love each year, a chance to talk about Torah itself rather than the content. This is one of the most important if not the most important portions of the Torah. The impact of this portion in particular has gone far beyond the borders of Israel. God reveals His teachings to Israel, His people, and we in turn…
Read More
Parashat Beshalach
Tu b’shevat, the 15th of Shevat, is a day designated as the New Year for trees. Our Land has always been a fruitful and blessed, fertile Land, while at the same time having the potential to be incredibly dry and arid, a living picture to the narrow balance we have in Israel between being blessed of the Lord, relying on His faithfulness to provide (as we see today in the…
Read More
Parashat Bo
We’re free! It is often said that the darkest hour of the night is the one before dawn. I’m not sure that’s true, but if it is then one of those lowest points and subsequent dawns took place some 2500 years ago as we returned from exile to Israel again and began to rebuild the Temple under Ezra and Nehemiah. The first returnees were dismayed at what they found and…
Read More
Parashat Va’era
Knowing when not to say no For 400 years our people toiled and worked in Egypt, just as G-d had promised they would, not a day longer or less, exactly what was promised and foreseen. When the time was up, G-d, who had been working behind the scenes for all this time, began to bring about Israel’s deliverance: Moshe was born, a man destined by G-d to walk with Him…
Read More
Parashat Shemot
Life and Death in Egypt ‘And these are the names…’, thus begins this new book in the scroll, the same phrase used at the end of Bereshit to detail the people leaving their homeland to sojourn in Egypt. The parallels are meant to be stark, then we were small, now we are large in number, then we were free, now we are enslaved. Much had happened in the ensuing 400…
Read More
Hineh ma tov umanaim, shevet achim gam yachad
The long term historical aim of British society has been to develop a multicultural model of existence where all value systems are equal and to be exalted as valid and worthy of contribution. Alongside this we have seen the concept of individualism as a high ideal and a cultural rebuttal of the age old dictum ‘no man is an island’. In the face of this we see community breakdown, family…
Read More
Responding to God
The final and most crucial part of the Yosef story unfolds: the unveiling of his real identity. The Torah says that God meant his whole journey up to this point for GOOD! (Genesis 45:7-8). That one sentence shows utter conviction of faith and trust in God, not only in the good times but in ALL things. Not for us the notion of a capricious deity who randomly interrupts our existence…
Read More
Parashat Miketz
Chanukah – God is in control Two thousand years ago, one wintry day in Jerusalem, a solitary figure walked through the Temple precincts in Shlomo’s Porch. It was the ideal place to be during this time, the marking of Israel’s ‘Independence Day’ as it was then known: Chanukah, the time of the rededication of the Temple after its dreadful desecration by Antiochus. That man was Yeshua Mashichanu. He was asked…
Read More
Are you part of the resistance movement?
The Lord was with Yosef; in everything he did God gave blessing and increase. Such wonderful success, able to carry responsibility – and on top of it all, he was handsome in form and appearance! But we know what he had to live through to bring him to that place. Yosef is in Egypt now, his past experiences of being sold into slavery by his brothers behind him. With God’s…
Read More
Fighting God
Fighting God In this portion we see Ya’akov returning to the land after 20 years to face all the issues he had so quickly avoided on his departure. We see him slowly beginning to learn the spiritual lessons he needed to learn. A man of formidable inner power and personal drive, yet still a man who thinks that events in life are primarily shaped by the person rather than by…
Read More