I had a cold this week for the first time in a long time, and while I didn’t exactly require a colon cleanse to get rid of it, my voice was rather hacked; so all I did this week was cantor the litergy; Rabbi Stan relieved me and saved my voice by doing the Torah commentary. However, I did have a VaYikra commentary ready to go, had I needed it. Here it is:
Shabbat Shalom.
Our parashah for today is VaYikra, or “And He called,” and covers Leviticus 1:1 through 6:7 – though in Jewish Bibles, it is Leviticus 1:1 through 5:26 because of a difference in numbering. This week’s reading is concerned, by and large, with describing the various kinds of offerings one can make to the L-RD.
Five different types of offerings are covered in this week’s reading. This list includes the burnt offering, the grain offering, the fellowship offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering. For each of these types of offerings, very specific instructions are given for how to select, prepare, slaughter and dispose of each offering. The details are meticulous and exacting, delving even into the specifics of which parts of a sacrificial animal’s body are to be burned to ashes and which parts are to be burned and offered as food, either to the people as a whole or to the priesthood only.
As I read and studied my way through this week’s parashah, at least one clear message stood out to me over and over again. Let’s take a look at it, beginning in:
NIV Leviticus 4:2-3
“Say to the Israelites: ‘When anyone sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the L-RD’s commands–If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the L-RD a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed.
What stands out to me here is the phrase, “When anyone sins unintentionally.” Often in today’s culture, intentionality is deemed more important than anything else. We hear it in everything from the excuses offered by our children – “Well, I didn’t MEAN to spill the cookies all over the floor. I just wanted one for myself.” – to the professional alibi-creating of lawyers – “Hey, my client didn’t KNOW that property belonged to someone else. He just found it laying there in an apparently abandoned house!”
It’s pathetic, isn’t it? And what does the Torah teach us over and over again in this week’s parashah?
NIV Leviticus 4:13
“‘If the whole Israelite community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the L-RD’s commands, even though the community is unaware of the matter, they are guilty.
Here’s another concept that we’ve lost track of over time: the concept of communal sins and communal guilt. You see, we are not as alone as we think we are on our journey with the L-RD. Not only are we responsible for ourselves, we are also responsible for the groups we attach ourselves to.
Let’s consider this for a moment. We are, most of us, part of a family, part of a church, part of a city, a state, even a nation. And to some extent – perhaps more than we’d all care to acknowledge – we all share in the sins and guilt of all those groups that are larger than ourselves alone.
Maybe I could make this point more clearly by restating this verse a few different ways. Now, my last name for those of you who don’t know, is Hansen. So, what if I read the verse this way:
“‘If the whole Hansen family sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the L-RD’s commands, even though the Hansen family is unaware of the matter, they are guilty.
Well, that’s easy enough, you may think. After all, if you have a small family, it might be possible to maintain a sense of obedience to The L-RD and his commands … maybe, right?
Now let’s try it another way:
“‘If the whole Beth Yeshua community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the L-RD’s commands, even though Beth Yeshua is unaware of the matter, they are guilty.
Now it gets to be a little harder, doesn’t it? Can you imagine what it might feel like if we substituted Beth Yeshua now for the city of Bloomington? Or the state of Minnesota? Or the United States of America? It would become pretty uncomfortable, pretty quickly, wouldn’t it?
Of course, there is such a thing as truly unintentional sin or uncleanness. Here’s an example.
Let’s imagine a scenario where Person A has a cold, but doesn’t know it yet. The cold is brewing in their system, they’re contagious, but the symptoms haven’t become obvious and they don’t know they’re sick… at least not yet. So, they shake hands with Person B. Person B also doesn’t know Person A is sick. But, just the same, Person B gets infected and catches a cold, too. That is a good example of truly unintentional sin, because Person A certainly didn’t intend to give Person B a cold; they didn’t even know they had one! But, as the Torah says in this week’s reading, Person A would still be guilty anyway, because intentional or not, the cold germs that infected Person B came from them … without intention.
The same theme is struck on again and again throughout the rest of the parashah. Ignorance of the L-RD’s commands is no excuse for violating them. Even when we don’t realize it, we are held responsible for our violations of God’s commands.
So, what can we do about it? Is there anything? Well, what we see in this week’s reading is that this is what the offerings are for; to cover the sins for which we are held guilty, but which we may be unaware of. In fact, the festival of Yom Kippur, one of the L-RD’s appointed times, is about dealing with all of this indirect guilt.
That is why, after each passage indicating an indirect form of sin and guilt, the solution is offered and it is the same: a sacrifice must be made. And why must a sacrifice be made? Because sin has a cost, a penalty, and that penalty is death. When sin occurs, death follows in its wake.
The system of sacrifices instituted here is especially meaningful in light of the approaching Passover season. In the original Passover, did the angel of death pass over the house of every Jew automatically, just because they were descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? No, they still had to obey the L-RD’s instructions, slaughter a lamb and place its blood on the doorposts of their houses. Only after following the L-RD’s commands in this way did the angel of death pass over their houses and spare the lives of the first-born inside.
It is a sobering thought to understand this concept of unintentional and community sin. I mean, I could stand here and just by defining who I am and where I am – I am a Hansen, a member of Beth Yeshua, a resident of Bloomington, of Minnesota, of the United States – I am also revealing several levels of unintentional sin, things I may not even be aware of, and yet could justly be held responsible for by the L-RD.
Now, the Temple is no longer standing in Jerusalem. Why? Because the Romans came in year 70 of the Common Era and destroyed it. If it were still standing, the Jewish system of sacrifices would continue to this day, and we also know that in the final days, when the Temple is rebuilt, the sacrifices will once again be made. Also, they will be conducted in the millennial kingdom because we know that everything the L-RD established here in the Torah was a reflection of His kingdom.
With the Temple destroyed, we can praise God that Yeshua is our fully sufficient sacrifice, so does the future re-establishment of the sacrificial system mean that Yeshua’s sacrifice is not sufficient? Not at all!
NIV Hebrews 10:1-8
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming–not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Messiah came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am–it is written about me in the scroll–I have come to do your will, O God.’ First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made).
So you see, these sacrifices were never themselves what offered remission of sin; the law required them to be made as an annual reminder of sin, but the sacrifices themselves were a shadow of Messiah’s sacrifice. That is why the sacrifices will start up again when the Temple is re-established; because they will serve the same purpose … to fulfill the requirements of the Law, to serve as a reminder of sin, and to be a reminder of Yeshua’s perfect sacrifice; just as it was then, so will it be in the kingdom.
You see, the one-time sacrifice of our Messiah is sufficient for all, but does this mean the Torah is done away with? No, but it does mean that in Yeshua, the Torah is fulfilled and filled up with meaning.
This brings us to a key scripture we’re familiar with in:
Matthew 5:17
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
I had a friend recently who questioned me about the interpretation of that verse as being “filled up with meaning” rather than “brought to an end” or “completed.” While Stan has many convincing sermons on this verse, I felt the best way to get across the truth of this interpretation was to go to an unbiased source.
For the word “fulfill,” the Strong’s indicated the word used there is the Greek word “pleroo.” Here’s the definition for this word, according to the entry in Strongs 4137.
4137 pleroo {play-ro’-o}
1) To make full, to fill up, i.e. to fill to the full,
1a) To cause to abound, to furnish or supply liberally,
2a) To fill to the top: so that nothing shall be wanting to full measure, fill to the brim.
As you can see here, the most favored definitions of pleroo all fit to the interpretation we favor here; the Torah is not done away with, but made alive and meaningful by the work of our Messiah Yeshua. And Yeshua Himself testifies further to this in:
Matthew 5:18
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
So, are heaven and earth still here? Well, I don’t think I’d be up here talking to you today if they had. So, if heaven and earth are still here, then our living Torah, the Messiah Yeshua, is here as well. Although the sacrificial system has passed out of use because the Temple no longer stands, we are still governed by the same Torah, the same standards, the same L-RD.
Shabbat Shalom.
Tags: colon cleanse, VaYikra