Zion's Voice

Torah Portion for 26th July - 1st August

Torah portion               Deuteronomy 3:23 to 7:11

Haftarah portion        Isaiah 40:1-26

“Va’etchanan”

As for God, His way is perfect

The Torah portion this week begins with Moses re-telling one of the most heartrending plea’s any one could make. Moses had been witness to the mighty hand of God in His dealings with this fledgling nation of Israel. He had the privilege of leading these folk through an amazing journey, out of Egypt to the very ‘gate’ of the Promised Land. He can ‘feel’ the presence of God about to display His might and power again in the conquest of the Land, and he wanted to be part of it.

Moses had come to terms with the decision God had made. He knew that the mantle was to pass to Joshua. But he was concerned that these Israelites, people he knew very well, had the capacity to be stubborn, or stiff-necked, or rebellious, or disobedient, or indifferent, or all of the above.

Deuteronomy 4:2 has a warning for this people, which could well apply to every one of us. How did Moses know what we would be like in 2015?  Read it for yourself please. Then move to verse 6. A plain message. If you wish to be seen as wise in the eyes of those around you, be careful to observe, diligently, all that the Lord has taught you.

Most of us have formed a view of the God we serve. There are MANY adjectives used to describe the nature and attributes of our God. It is extremely comforting to remember the attributes of love, mercy and grace (which I often do). He extends His love to us when we least deserve it. He even sent His Only Son to bear the punishment of our sin. But now look at Deuteronomy 4:24. Moses does not ‘gild the lily’ with his stern warning, an attribute of God which we rarely consider. “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God”.  Wow !!  If you are like me that is not one of God’s attributes which brings much comfort, does it?

In chapter 5 of our portion, we find a repeat of the “Ten Words” which God gave to Moses on the mountain. Then in chapter 6 of our text we find the most oft repeated passage of Scripture. The SHEMA. Spoken twice each day by every Orthodox Jew. It is the constant reminder of the central role of God in their everyday living. It is the commandment of God to teach their children, to wear the Scriptures (as in Tefilin), to decorate their homes (or at least the doorposts of their houses). It is the Scripture passage which distinguishes the Jewish people from all other nations on the Earth.

Some time ago I became aware of the writings of Lord Sacks. He is a former Chief Rabbi of England, now a peer in the House of Lords in London. A scholarly thought provoking writer and one for whom I have gained great respect. I commend to you his exposition of “The Shema” which you can access by following this link:- 

http://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-5770-vaetchanan-the-mean...

I conclude this week’s ‘reflection’ by quoting from Rabbi Sacks’ insights (which you can read in full by following the link).

“ The ancient Greeks were “the people of sight, of the spatial and plastic sense . . . as if they thought to transpose the flowing, fleeting, ever related elements of life into rest, space, limitation . . . The Jew did not see so much as he heard . . . His organ was the ear . . . When Elijah perceived G-d, he heard only a still, small voice. For that reason the Jew never made an image of his G-d.”

That is why the keyword of Judaism is Shema. G-d is not something we see, but a voice we hear. This is how Moses put it elsewhere in this week’s sedra, describing the supreme revelation at Mount Sinai:

Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. (Deut. 4: 12)”

“Shema Yisrael does not mean “Hear, O Israel”. It means something like:

Listen. Concentrate. Give the word of G-d your most focused attention. Strive to understand. Engage all your faculties, intellectual and emotional. Make His will your own. For what He commands you to do is not irrational or arbitrary but for your welfare, the welfare of your people, and ultimately for the benefit of all humanity.”

Please read again,(and again!), the words we know as “The Shema” in Deuteronomy 6:4-9.  This time with the benefit of the insight provided by Rabbi Lord Sacks echoing in your consciousness as you read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest … and you will be blessed.

Shabbat Shalom

RS

Torah Portion for 19th July - 25th July

Torah portion  …….   Deuteronomy 1:1 to 3:22

Haftarah portion ….. Isaiah 1: 1-27

“Words”                                                                       

There are conditions ?

“Devarim”, Deuteronomy in English, consists of a number of discourses by Moses, preparing the Israelites for life, as a nation, in their new land after his days. They are, in effect, farewell messages, reminding the people of the instructions God had provided them for living righteously with each other and with Himself. Just as Leviticus contains a lot of legal detail concerning the Levites,( the Priesthood) so Deuteronomy contains much legal detail for the laity.

Neither Leviticus nor Deuteronomy involve journeying’s. They are purely instructive, and in many cases repetitious of instructions given to Moses ‘on the mountain’.

In this first portion from Deuteronomy, Moses recites the progress which has been made over the past 40 years, from the captivity in Egypt to the banks of the River Jordan on the plains of Moab. They are reminded of God’s faithfulness in all their travels, as a prelude to His promised care for them as they enter the Promised Land.

Moses must have been sad when he confessed before the congregation of Israel in Chapter 1: 37,38 that he would not be with them as they went into the Land, but he graciously instructed them to encourage Joshua in the task that lay before him. He also reminded them, that because of lack of trust in the promises of God, all those who had wavered at Kadesh Barnea were now dead.

So this is a sort of series of ‘sermons’ before they ENTER the land.

Now let us move forward approximately 900 years. The HAFTARAH portion, from Isaiah 1, contains the first ‘sermon’ to them as Isaiah prophesies that unless they change their ways, it will not be long before they are EXPELLED from the land. (which they were a few short years later in 586 b.c.e.)

The Land gift to Abraham’s descendants is certainly unconditional, it is theirs by God given right, but the occupation of the land given in the Mosaic covenant has always been conditional. Moses carefully reminds the people of that condition. It is all about OBEDIENCE to the instructions for righteous living (Torah) which God prepared for those He calls “His special treasure”. People who live differently to those around them.

I was brought up as a young Christian to believe “once saved, always saved”. The land is ours, no-one can throw us out, live as we like, a loving God will forgive us !!  It is a most comforting state of mind. But that is not what my Bible says. What?  there are conditions? Yes there are conditions. Or at least a condition, and that condition is willing OBEDIENCE.

Read what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 11: 11-22. Then read what Samuel said in 1 Samuel 15:22.

To finish our ‘reflection’ today, we must look at the really good news. It is found in the HAFTARAH. Isaiah was tasked with giving the people a sharp reminder of their shortcomings. It is evident that they had become most neglectful in their obedience (or lack of it) to God’s instructions for righteous living. Then God in His amazing mercy, love and grace provides a way. To this saved, but neglectfully disobedient people, these words :-

  "Come now, and let us reason together," Says the LORD, "Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like        crimson, They shall be as wool.

   If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land; …” Isaiah 1: 18,19

Those words are just as true for us today as they were for the Israelites of Isaiah’s day. Trust me, when you see the word IF in a sentence, as in the Scripture quotation above, it means that “there are conditions”.

Do you remember what Yeshua said in John 14:15 ? The more accurate Nestle-Aland Greek and United Bible Societies text ( NU text) reads “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments”. So yes, there are conditions through which we show our love for Him.

Shabbat Shalom

RS

Torah Portion for 12th July - 18th July

Torah portion  …….   Numbers 30:2 to 36:13

Haftarah portion …. Jeremiah 2: 4 – 28 and 3: 4

Prepare the way

“Tribes / Stages”

This week there are TWO Torah portions, which are combined and read as one in ‘ordinary’ years, and read separately in leap years. The Hebrew calendar has 7 leap years in every 19 years. The reason for this is that the Hebrew calendar has a LUNAR cycle, whereas the Gregorian calendar has a SOLAR cycle.

The Lord continued to give Moses instructions regarding the occupation and division of the Land of Promise amongst the TWELVE  “ tribes” .. but they still do not “go in and possess the land”. (The actual borders of that Land of Promise is specified in Numbers chapter 34, it is far larger than the present day Land of Israel).  The taking of the Land would eventually come under Joshua’s leadership, after the death of Moses, but first it was necessary to ‘prepare the way’.

Numbers Chapter 33 is the historical account of the “stages” of the journey the Israelites have already made since their departure from Egypt almost 40 years earlier.

That explains the names given to these particular Torah portions.

Now another obstacle arises, the Midianites. The Midianites were a nomadic people descended from the fourth son born to Abraham by Keturah. Before Abraham died, and his inheritance was bequeathed to Isaac, he called his other sons together, settled a portion (called ‘gifts’ in the text) of his estate on them and sent them away. (Genesis  25:6) Just like Ishmael before him, Midian and his descendants became a problem for the Israelites thereafter. (Remember, Joseph’s brothers sold him to Midianite traders, who had formed an association with the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar.) Genesis 37:28. After the incident when Balaam was unable to pronounce a curse on the Israelites, it was the Midianite women who enticed the Israelite men to worship idols and foreign gods. (Numbers 25)

The children of Israel, probably over 2 million of them, together with their substantial herds of livestock were camped on ‘the plains of Moab’, present day Jordan, looking across the Jordan River to the land of Canaan. The Moabites had been subdued by the Amorites, and they in turn had been conquered by the Israelites.  TWO of the tribes, REUBEN and GAD liked the look of the place where they were camped and requested that they be allowed to make permanent settlement there. Moses agreed to this on condition that the Reubenites and the Gadites stood side by side with the other tribes in the conquest of the land occupied by the Canaanites. But first, they sent 12,000 men to remove the Midianites from the land, in fact to ‘prepare the way’.

They were, “the little foxes that spoil the vine”. (Song of Solomon 2:15)

Here is the message for us in this part of the story. In typology, our journey to the Promised Land, follows our salvation. God has provided well defined instructions for righteous living (commandments and precepts) regarding our conduct if we are to remain in that “land”.

It is quite fashionable for those who totally misunderstand the teaching of the Apostle Paul to say, ‘you are not under law but under grace’. An eight word phrase at the end of a sentence, which very few people who quote it can tell you how that sentence begins.. or even the context of where appears in the scriptures. Furthermore, Yeshua taught very differently (Matthew 5 to 7) to the conventional church teaching on this phrase.

In our lives there are “midianites”, little foxes that spoil the vine, that need to be chased out and put to death if we are to fully enjoy all that the Lord has prepared for us in His Land of Promise. In this context we could call it ‘preparing the way’. He seeks to bless us abundantly, but we have a part to play in making ourselves ready to receive that blessing.

Shabbat Shalom

RS

Torah Portion for 5th July - 11th July

Torah portion             Numbers 25:10 to 30:1

Haftarah portion      Jeremiah 1: 1 to 2: 3

Counted .. for God!

Phinehas, was a grandson of Aaron. He was zealous for God. He had been trained as a child to know and love His precepts and commandments. He had a strong sense of what was right and what was wrong. Then in a time of deep crisis for the Israelites, he ‘stepped up to the plate’ and was counted for God.

The Book of Numbers (Bamidbar) is well named isn’t it? Here in our portion today we have another census. This time it is of men of arms- bearing age, those deemed ready for war. Doesn’t it strike you as a bit strange that God, in His wisdom, having brought these Israelites to the place where they could actually see the land He had promised to give them, that He then tells them that they are going to have to fight to possess it. It is a gift to them, YES, but it has to be taken by their own efforts. There is a ‘messianic’ message here I think. Our salvation certainly is a free gift of God through Messiah Yeshua, YES, but there are choices we have to make for ourselves in order to ‘live in the land’. It is the choice of being counted for God, not imagining we can go on with our lives in the same manner we were before He called us to Himself.

There are many preachers of ‘a prosperity gospel’ in churches today. It is an “easy” gospel. “Come to Jesus and have all your problems solved” is the message. I do not find that in my Bible. It is costly to be counted for God. Look only at the thousands of men and women who are martyred for their faith in Islamic countries today  .. and pray for them.  (Read Luke 24: 25 – 35 and see if you have a Bible like mine.)

Numbers 26  : 64,65 gives us a glimpse of the justice of the God of Israel. He had declared that those who had voted against the ‘short route’ conquest of the Promised Land would not enter it. In our passage today, we are told that they had all died in the wilderness travels (Numbers 14:23)

Using the same justice, God then acts to replace Moses for the journey into the Land. I am really sad. I feel so sorry for Moses, a faithful, humble man. To the Israelites, even to this very day, a GIANT of a man. But we need to take note that God uses all of His dealings with the Israelites for our instruction and understanding of Himself. One does  not need the intelligence of an Einstein to see that the lesson here is that we trifle with God at our peril. Remember Hebrews 10:31 again!

We cannot leave this portion, as it ends, without a mention of the ‘mo’edim’. The appointed times of the Lord. The children of Israel were about to enter the Land of Promise under the leadership of Joshua. During the past 38 years, they had been moulded into a disciplined people, an army no less. They had seen the Shekinah of God over the Tabernacle, they understood that God required them to worship Him in the way, and at the times, He had declared. Sure there had been times when they grumbled and grizzled about their lot. But they had a genuine “fear of the Lord”.

Now the time was near when God had put all the pieces into place.

Chapter 29 of Numbers is worthy of our ‘reflection’, and I commend it to you for private study. It details the observation of the festivals of the seventh month of their year. It is highly significant in understanding the prophetic significance of the final three festivals of the Lord. They are prophetic of the return to this Earth of Yeshua Ha’maschiach.

Trumpets .. which herald the return of the Lord/

Day of Atonement .. which heralds the final judgement.

Tabernacles .. which is the great ingathering, and speaks of the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Hands up all those who want to be there for this marriage supper.

Those who will be at this last feast will, I believe, be those who have been “counted for God”. It is never too late to begin the journey.

Shabbat shalom

RS

Torah Portion for 28th June - 4th July

Torah portion            Numbers 22:2 to 25:9

Haftarah portion       Micah 5:6 to 6:8

When God speaks.. listen!

The journey of the Israelites had brought them to the land occupied by the Moabites. It is quite interesting to follow the route by which they had come, and you can read it in Numbers 21.

The Amorites, who shared a border with the Moabites, had refused the Israelites safe passage through their land, and lost it in the battle that ensued. Balak, king of the Moabites (Genesis 19:37.) at that time, was petrified that he would suffer the same fate as the Amorites. He looked down to the plain where the Israelites were camped and all he could see was ‘wall to wall’ Israelites. (We tried to visualize this scene in an earlier ‘reflection’ didn’t we? Even today, looking down on that area from Mt Nebo is quite a scene).  So Balak decided to enlist some help.

The story which follows is most interesting. It involves a ‘celebrity’ seer, a prophet with a successful history apparently (Numbers 22:6), called Balaam.

As the story unfolds, we have an incident in which the donkey on which Balaam is riding sees an Angel of the Lord blocking the road, and refuses to proceed, Balaam does not see the Angel and begins to hit the donkey. Then amazingly, the donkey speaks!! It asks Balaam why the beating? MORE AMAZINGLY, to me, Balaam enters into conversation with the donkey !!!!!

The main thrust of our reading today, however, is to focus on the message contained therein, rather than the interesting detail of the events.

Balak had the clear intention to frustrate, if he could, the passage of these Israelites on their journey to the Land of Promise. To that extent, he may be viewed as an enemy of the Lord, an agent of Satan. Balaam, seems at first to be on Israel’s side, and to his credit declares that he will only speak that which God shows him.  Later it appears that he might be persuaded to speak a curse on Israel for the right price, even though he is prevented from so doing. The evidence for this is in the fact that he persisted FOUR times to accompany Balak in the pursuit of trying to utter a curse on Israel. In spite of that, of course, God was, and is, intent on BLESSING ISRAEL.

 (Note here that there are TWO different words used for “curse” in Hebrew, both are used in the same sentence in Genesis 12:3, … ‘I will curse those who curse you’ … the first curse in that phrase is ‘a’rar’, meaning to ‘bitterly curse’, and the second is ‘qalal’, meaning to ‘treat lightly’, or ‘to treat with contempt’. This is not a statement of wanton punishment, but a solemn conditional promise of God, and we should always be mindful of that).

The curse that Balak was seeking for the Israelites is the ‘a’rar.’ He wanted Balaam to ‘bitterly curse’ those Israelites. ( Note:- Jeremiah 48:1-46 prophesies a ‘bitter curse” of destruction for Moab in the end times, but not quite the total uninhabitable destruction which is the case with Edom and Babylon).

This is not the end of our association with Balaam. We will meet him again later in our “reflections”.

There is an ominous lesson in this story for those willing to learn. Within our churches today, there are many “balak’s” who, regardless of God’s clear declaration that these people are His  ‘special treasure’, deliberately  ‘qalal’ (treat with contempt) Israel, some even go as far as to “a’rar” (bitterly curse) Israel. It is a dangerous course to chart. God will keep ALL His promises, even the ones we don’t much care for.

Surely those of us who are ‘christian’ believers seek the blessing of Almighty God, don’t we?  Well, trust God on this. Find a way to BLESS ISRAEL, then He will fulfil the promise He made to Abraham, in you.

Shabbat shalom

RS