Well, I made a successful return to Torah commentaries this Shabbat. Hopefully what I shared was enlightening. You can now all judge for yourselves. Here’s my 2010 Tazriah-Metsora commentary.
Shabbat Shalom.
This week, we have a double portion for our parashah. It includes Tazriah, a Hebrew word that means, “She bears seed” or “She conceives,” as well as the portion known as “Metsora,” a Hebrew word that means, “Infected one,” or “diseased one.” This double portion covers Leviticus chapter 12 through Leviticus chapter 15.
Now, this week’s reading covers such topics as pregnancy and childbirth, skin diseases, bodily discharges and the laws surrounding purification from all of these afflictions. But before we delve into that, I want to share a word of encouragement from this week’s portion for a select portion of this congregation – and you’ll know who you are in just a moment.
Now, some of you might remember the 1980s. One of the big trends back then was custom T-shirt shops. You could walk in, select the size and color of T-shirt you liked best, and then select just about any kind of saying or cartoon that you wanted and it would be added to the shirt while you waited.
I’ll always remember one we got my father. It’s not a Biblical saying, but it might sound like it. The t-shirt read, “God made only a few perfect heads. All the rest, he covered with hair.”
I thought it was pretty funny back then, too. Of course, those of you who’ve known me for a few years now will testify that, as the years go on, my head’s getting a little closer to perfect all the time.
Yet the word of encouragement for those of us who are a bit closer to perfect atop our heads comes to us from:
Leviticus 13:40-41
If a man’s hair has fallen from his scalp, he is bald; but he is clean. If a man’s hair has fallen off the front part of his scalp, he is forehead-bald; but he is clean.
So, that’s good news, right? Some of us may be balding, men, but at least we’re clean! Now, joking aside, the passage does go on to say that if baldness is accompanied by sores of various kinds, it can indeed indicate ritual uncleanness. Of course, so can a whole lot of other things. And what we see in this week’s double-portion is that there is so much ritual uncleanness in the world, it’s almost impossible to avoid!
Yet it’s important to note that ritual uncleanness is not always the same as sinfulness – though, at times, it can be. For example, that which is unclean can often be remedied in this week’s parashah by simply bathing and separating oneself from the community until evening. Can water grant remission of sins? No, the Torah is clear that blood must be shed for sins to be pardoned. So if some types of uncleanness can be remedied by washing with water, they must not be sources of sin, but a simple lack of purity.
Yet even this insight misses something more important. What both of these portions talk about is what? Ceremonial uncleanness, right? As we read, for example, in:
Leviticus 12:1-4
The L-RD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.
So you see, many of these purity laws have to do with one’s fitness to enter the Temple … the Tent of Meeting … and since that Temple no longer stands, it would seem many of these laws are of limited relevance and use to us today. Right?
Not so fast. Because while the laws of ritual purity were specific to Jewish people living in the Land, and relevant to entering the Temple or the Tent of Meeting, they also have a more symbolic, spiritual aspect to them.
Let’s start by looking at the word for impurity or infection. The Hebrew word for our second portion is “metsorah.” It is derived from two root words. The first, “motzi,” means “source or well-spring.” The second, “ra,” means “evil.” So the word “metsorah,” in addition to meaning “infected one” or “diseased one,” could also be said to mean “well-spring or source of evil.”
When one thinks about this, it begins to make sense. After all, on a spiritual level, what causes infection or disease in our spirit? Evil, right? Specifically, exposure to evil or a source of evil. And often, simple exposure is enough.
We see the truth in this in the story of the fall of man. What happens when Adam and Chavah are exposed to the lies of the serpent? They become infected, diseased with doubt. Doubt about what? Whether to trust in the words of the L-RD, or the words of the serpent. Exposure alone to that doubt is enough to produce what comes next: rebellion against God’s only command at that time, as they eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
In the same way, we can see how simple exposure to impurity can infect us in our daily walk, in our witness, in how we view, understand and even explain our faith in the L-RD to others.
For example, what does the Tenakh teach us about where to invest our faith and trust? We read this in:
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the L-RD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
This is what the L-RD asks of us, right? To simply put our trust in Him, rather than our own understanding of things. We can all agree on that, right?
Yet we live in a world that is full of people who don’t do that; who put their trust in their own understanding, rather than in the L-RD. Still with me? Good.
One of the most prevalent theories out there in the world today, in the understanding of men, is the theory of evolution.
Like atmospheric yeast, it’s out there in the world, like it or not. And this idea that man was not created but evolved from lower life-forms, and all the ideas that spring forth from that core theory, such as that the earth is, as scientist Carl Sagan always said, “billions and billions of years old,” rather than nearing the end of the six thousand years of human history spoken of in the Bible, has been entrenched in public education and the public mind so firmly for so long, that the fact is that today, many believers would prefer to cast aside the first few chapters of Genesis in an attempt to lure those who view the world through evolutionary, so-called scientific eyes, than to even attempt to believe what God has revealed about the nature of His creation.
The rationalization many use is that they “don’t want a few chapters in one book of the Bible” to be a barrier to someone entering the kingdom of heaven. “It’s not important enough,” they’ll claim.
Yet, is that what we’re called to do? Are we to stake claim only in the words of the Torah that make sense to the unbelieving? Or are we to simply trust in the L-RD with all of our hearts and lean not on our own understanding?
And that’s what simple exposure can do! Simply by being in the same atmosphere as this well-spring of evil, we become infected, diseased in our own thinking. We start to change what we believe to make it easier for the unbelieving to accept, rather than simply standing firm in our trust in the L-RD… which is what the L-RD has called us to do!
This is just an example. There are many. Perhaps the well-spring of evil in your home is broadcast television, which contains so many shows that are rooted in evil and untruths that can infect you, make you impure in your simple, commanded trust in God. Perhaps for your children, it’s videogames that is the source of infection. It could be an unhealthy amount of time spent on the Internet, rather than in the Word of the L-RD.
It could even be something as simple as evil speech – known as lashon horah in Hebrew – the practice of speaking of people in a way meant to diminish them in the eyes of others, even if what you’re saying is true. If the intention is to diminish rather than to build up, it’s lashon horah and it can destroy a sense of safety and trust in a community.
Now, perhaps, we begin to see the pieces come together from what seems on the surface like a rather dry and boring pair of Torah portions. For you see, for all these detailed instructions on how to rid oneself of impurity, there is one remedy that is never recommended. Whether an impurity is a result of sin, or a simpler impurity that isn’t necessarily sin but does make you ceremonially impure – in other words, unfit to come before the L-RD – one solution that the Torah NEVER endorses is to do nothing about it!
That’s amazing to think about, isn’t it? I mean, you read about how touching a mildewed cloth makes you impure, but the solution is to wash and wait until evening, the start of a new day, and one is tempted to think: well, then that’s not sin! Why is the Torah being so nitpicky? If it’s not sin, why all the fuss over simple impurity.
Well, it’s because while God does desire for us to come to Him through Messiah Yeshua and experience His yeshua – His salvation – he isn’t done with us once the sin is dealt with. God wants us to live a life far above that minimum standard required to attain eternal residence in His kingdom! He wants us to, as he repeats throughout the Torah, including just before this week’s parashah in:
Leviticus 11:45
I am the L-RD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God. Therefore, be holy, because I am holy.
Holiness – not just freedom from sin but freedom from all impurity – is the nature of God. To experience intimacy with God, we must strive to be like him. Not just forgiven of our sins, but pursuing holiness, which is the lack of all metsorahs – the lack of any sources or well-springs of evil in our lives.
Let us, therefore, pursue lives that are holy – free of all spiritual infection and disease – in how we live and walk through this life and live by our beliefs, our trust in our creator. Let us be holy, because the L-RD our God is holy, and may we accomplish this through our redeemer, the Messiah Yeshua.
Shabbat Shalom.
My Nitsavim-VaYelech 2010 Commentary
Thursday, October 28th, 2010
Shabbat Shalom
Today we have two Torah portions to cover. The first is Nitsavim, a Hebrew word that means, “You are standing,” and the second is VaYelech, a Hebrew word that means, “And he went.” Together, these portions cover everything from Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 10 (though some Bibles will number it as verse 9) through all of chapter 31.
You know, this week’s reading brings something to mind. As some of you may remember, I used to teach the bar and bat mitzvah kids here a few years ago. One week we were discussing the Ten Commands, and we had been focusing for a while on, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” One of the boys raised his hand and when I called on him, he asked, “Craig, are there any commands that tell us how to treat our brothers and sisters?” Before I could answer, one of the other boys spoke up and said, “Of course there is! Thou shall not murder.”
Now, of course, the commands of the LORD are not a joking matter. And yet, too often, we as believers do not treat them with the seriousness they deserve.
In this week’s reading, God makes it clear his commands are not to be taken lightly. For example, we read this in:
The passage goes on to say that such stubbornness will only bring disaster on the people and the land. Yes, God is patience; He is gracious and long-suffering; He is certainly not short-tempered. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished so what should that tell the children of Israel? That they do not want to be numbered among the guilty! That they should not persist in going their own way!
Unfortunately, in this week’s reading, God reveals to Moses that despite everything the children of Israel has been through, including losing an entire generation in their time of exile in the wilderness, due to their stubborn rebellion to God, the lesson has not been learned. God confirms this to Moses in:
Can you imagine the anguish Moses felt upon hearing this prophecy from the LORD? He had dedicated his life to serving the God of Israel to bring them here to the Promised Land, where they might be blessed and serve the LORD, and in his final days in this life, he is basically being told, “Mission Incomplete.”
Now, one can argue that Moses had done all that God had commanded him to do, and that is true. In that sense, Moses had fulfilled his mission – but God’s plan is not yet complete. You see, the fact that the people of Israel will sin and rebel again is not a failure of Moses; Moses was just a man, like any of us. It is not even a failure of the law; for the commands of God are true. What was missing was constant communication between God and his people.
That’s what the Israelites turned down at Mount Sinai; God offered to let them hear from Him directly, but they were intimidated by that and asked for a human mediator instead: Moses. Moses couldn’t be there all the time… and now in this week’s portion, he’s about to not be there at all.
God promised earlier in Deuteronomy a “prophet like Moses” who will restore that constant communication between God and His people, and that prophet like Moses is the Messiah Yeshua. Part of why the law was so hard for the children of Israel to keep is because they were trying to do it on their own. No one can accomplish that apart from God’s help. Perfect obedience requires a lack of sin; and no one lacks sin, except for Yeshua the Messiah, as we read in:
This is the hope we have as followers of Yeshua; yet are those who say that the Torah is too hard to follow, or that it has been done away with because it was fulfilled in Yeshua, correct? Once we have the power of God through His Spirit, the Ruach haKodesh, at work in our lives, are we to continue to regard the Torah as too hard to fulfill, as having no value and as something that is now done away with and irrelevant?
This week’s reading teaches us the correct answer is, “No!” The Torah is not asking us for more than we are capable of. Here is one of the cornerstone verses of this week’s reading, and we find it in:
In this passage, the LORD is speaking through Moses to the people of Israel as they prepare to enter the Promised Land. He has spent time summarizing the entire history of the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Torah, and the laws that shall govern them in the land they are about to enter. And so it is entirely appropriate at this point for the LORD to reassure the people, so that they do not feel overwhelmed by the burdens and responsibilities they have been given and he shares these words. “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.”
As Solomon observed, there’s nothing new under the sun. As it was back in the days of Moses, so it is today. I’m sure many of the children of Israel listened to all these commands, this entire Torah, and found themselves overwhelmed by it, and in their hearts were thoughts that it was too much for God to expect of them. That no one could ever keep it. That’s how many believers still feel about it today.
But is that true? Well, if the Torah is to be believed, and IT IS, then we have to accept as true what we read here. “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.”
This is consistent with the life of Messiah Yeshua. He lived a life far above the standard set down in the Torah, and if He is our example, would he set an example that no one can follow? Of course not! He set one we are capable of following!
We also know there are others who lived at or above the standard set by the Torah. For example, we read this in:
Blameless is the key word there. And such an achievement is a requirement for leadership in a congregation, as we read in:
Is blameless keeping of the Torah standard really too hard for any believer to live up to? Notice that these passages do not indicate sin-free living, but blameless living.
I took my examples from the New Covenant writings to demonstrate that this is not only a Mosaic standard: the expectation to live a life blameless according to the written Torah is how Yeshua lived out His example, it is a standard many people are said to have lived up to in both the Old and New Covenant writings, and it was a general expectation for those in leadership in the first-century church.
Would this be expected if it could not be accomplished? The answer, of course, is “No.” It would not be required if it were impossible to do it.
It is important to remember that what the Torah requires is not the LORD’s perfect standard for holy living, but merely the minimum standard for our behavior to be acceptable to Him. In other words, it’s the least anyone could do in gratitude for all He has done.
This is why Yeshua taught things in this style, saying, “You have heard it said, but I say to you.” Each teaching in that style always has Yeshua raising the standards, not lowering them or doing away with them. And He did this to point out that not only was the Torah standard achievable, but much more was possible as well.
It is a myth that no one can live up to the expectations of the Torah. Remember the words from this week’s reading, offered truthfully to the Israelites by God: “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.”
Now, let’s not be deceived. All are subject to sin; all fall short of the LORD’s perfect standard. But there is a vast difference between the occasional slip into sin in a moment of weakness and what Paul identifies in:
That phrase, “live like this,” indicates a state of ongoing, willing, unrepentant sin. It is that point at which one gives up the struggle against fleshly desires, snuffs out the will of the Spirit, and we begins to justify and excuse whatever sinful behavior captures and enslaves them.
That is what the LORD is referring to here as well as he speaks to the people of Israel through Moses in this week’s reading. The LORD is not impatient with those who slip up occasionally; but those who allow their hearts to grow hard and unrepentant will not go unpunished by Him.
That’s our insight for today from Nitsavim and VaYelech; the LORD is and will always be consistent. He is not a God who deals unfairly, making demands that are impossible to meet. Because, “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.”
Shabbat Shalom.
Tags: Nitsavim, VaYelech
Posted in sermons and commentaries, Torah | No Comments »