Parashah Ki Tavo 2018 (When you come) Deuteronomy 26 – 29

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As Moses finishes his Second Discourse (review of the laws) he starts the Third (and final) Discourse in Chapter 27, which is the enforcement of the laws.  This culminates in Chapter 28, the Blessings and the Curses chapter in which we are told what blessings we will receive for obedience, and the horrible litany of curses that will befall us for disobedience.

All of which happened: we were mightily blessed when we obeyed, and when we disobeyed we were even more mightily cursed. 

One interesting point of detail before we start: in 26:1 we are told to bring the first fruits of the land to the Cohen as a sacrifice to God, and in 26:12 it is referenced that this is the third year tithe. So if we are in the land for three years, why are the first fruits in the third year? In Leviticus 19:23-25 it says:

When you come to the Land and you plant any food tree, you shall surely block its fruit [from use]; it shall be blocked from you for three years, not to be eaten. And in the fourth year, all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the Lord. And in the fifth year, you may eat its fruit.

So the first fruits given unto the Lord after possessing the land could be only done in the third year. 

I have often written how Chapter 28 in this book is one of my favorites because it shows that God’s blessings are what he actively does for us, and his curses are really not active, but passive. In other words, God gives us blessings but when he curses, it is really just the absence of his blessings.  We live in a cursed and fallen world so when God isn’t blessing us (i.e., protecting us from the real world) we are subjected to the world as it is. 

But today I want to talk about something different. I want to talk about how much obedience does God really expect from us? I mean, really- no one has ever lived the Torah perfectly, except (of course) Yeshua, and he is the son of God and was filled with the Ruach Ha Kodesh (Holy Spirit) from birth. I know it says that the Spirit fell upon him like a dove in the Gospels, but it is clear from what we read in the Gospels that there was something unique and special about Yeshua from his birth and throughout his youth.

So, if no one can live up to the standards of the Torah, and God knows this, why require us to do everything that is in the Torah?  On the surface it seems really unfair, doesn’t it? 

But then again, we know God is fair. He wants us to live the Torah as he gave it, which he reminds us at the end of this book (“Do not add to or take away…”), but he knows we can’t. That is why he also gave us the sacrificial system outlined way back in Leviticus 1-7 (and repeated throughout the other books.) It is through the sacrifice of innocent blood that we can be forgiven of our sin.

That is really a wild concept- sin can only be forgiven through the shedding of innocent blood (Hebrews 9:22, based on Leviticus 17:11), which means the one who is guilty cannot shed his or her own blood to atone for their own sin. It must be the blood of another, an innocent. Perhaps that is why God created the animals that are acceptable for sacrifice- just so that we have something clean and innocent to atone for our sins? Hmm…maybe? Maybe the other things we get from them– food, milk, cheese, yogurt, clothing, etc.- is all just a perk?

Why would God give us commandments we can’t follow completely and create animals that are destined to be killed so that our sins can be forgiven? My answer is… I don’t know why. Really- I have no idea why we are given commandments we can never live up to and why the guilty are not allowed to atone for their sins with their own blood.

Perhaps, just maybe, it’s because God thinks and sees things from an eternal viewpoint and these things I am asking about are finite? Perhaps it is because the real horror of sin is that the sinner must live with the memory of a poor, innocent having to suffer because of what that person did?

Again, I don’t know. This is a sort of conundrum, an unanswerable question which will forever haunt us. I don’t even think there is an answer, but there may be a solution to the problem of trying to know why and never being able to: trust that God knows what he is doing, even when you don’t.

We have been reviewing everything that happened in the prior four books of the Torah in this last book, and we have been told that pork is bad and deer is OK; fruit trees must not be used for 3 years for first fruits but we still have to wait a full five years before we can eat the fruit- it is holy after three years but not allowed to be eaten for 5. The Red Heifer ashes are used to cleanse us but everything involved in creating the ashes makes us unclean. A woman is unclean for 7 days after giving birth to a boy but for two weeks if it is a girl.

In Judaism, we have different types of “laws”-  Mishpatim and Chukkim.  The Mishpatim are laws easily understood, such as do not kill and do not lie. The Chukkim are laws for which we do not understand the reason, such as why can’t we wear clothes of different types of material and why pork is unclean. The Torah tells us that Mishpatim are to be guarded but Chukkim are to be done.  This could mean that because we can understand the reason Mishpatim have been given, we must make sure that we do not change or rationalize why we should ignore them. With regards to Chukkim, because we cannot understand why they have been decreed, we really can’t justify or rationalize changing them so they should just simply be obeyed.

As an example, a “mercy killing” violates the Mishpatim not to kill, but we can rationalize by saying we aren’t really committing murder, we are doing a form of humane Tzadakah (charity.) However, since there is no reasonable or easily understood justification for not mixing wool and linen in a shirt, how can we rationalize disobedience? We just have to accept that’s how it is and this is what we must do, period; end of story; don’t slam the door on your way out.

That, of course, is very hard to do for us prideful, curious humans who need to know “Why” for everything. We question, we analyze, we change, we reject and we adjust things to fit our own desires. But God doesn’t allow us to do that, which may be one of the reasons we can never be completely obedient.

I think this is why Yeshua told us we need to pick up our execution stake in order to follow him. We must be ready to die to self, to kill our own curiosity and desire to know “why” in order to be able to accept the Ruach HaKodesh and be led by it. Yeshua also said we need to be like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of God; in other words, accepting, trusting, and unquestioning (although I think he meant kids older than 2 or 3 who can’t say anything without asking, “Why?”)

What we should carry away with us from this parashah is that we will not ever understand why God wants us to do all the things he requires of us.  Furthermore, even when we understand the “why” of certain Mishpatim we are not to rationalize disobedience. Overall, whether we understand the reasoning for a commandment or not, we should obey all of God’s commands without question.

It’s this simple- he’s God, we’re not, so we do what he says.

The Finite Can Never Understand the Infinite

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Can you imagine what 1,000,000 candles would look like if they were all lined up in a row?

Can you picture in your mind what 1,000,000 dollar bills would look like if they were stacked one on the other?

I can’t.  My mind, although it is often in a state of flux, is still pretty sharp and yet I cannot picture what one million anything looks like. I cannot “see” it or imagine what it is.

This is the problem we have when we try to imagine or understand the awesomeness of God. He is so far out of our range of understanding, so distant from the furthest edge of the Bell Curve of our knowledge that we can never even come close to knowing what he knows. Or understanding why he does what he does. Or even understanding the things he tells us about.

In Judaism we have three types of laws:

  1. Mishpatim– these are the laws we can understand that are mostly “civil” laws, such as do not kill or do not commit adultery;
  2. Edot– these are ceremonial laws regarding the rites and practices such as rules for Shabbat and the sacrificial system; and
  3. Chukim– these are laws God gave to us that seemingly have no rationale at all. For instance, changing the sacramental bread every week or not wearing clothes of different cloths.

Human nature almost demands that we know the “why” of something. When someone asks us to do something, how many times is our first response, “Why?” This is no different with God because I hear and read, over and over…and over…so many people “explaining” why the Kosher laws are better for us or why we need to wear Tzitzit.

The answer I give is this,” Because God said so.”

That is all the answer we need, and the easiest answer to understand. I will go even further than this and say that if this answer isn’t enough for you, then you need to start asking yourself what your faith is based on?  If we say we have faith, but can’t accept God’s commandments without understanding the reason why we should, then we aren’t faithful at all. How can I say that? Easy!- if you cannot accept what God says without knowing the reason why, it is because you do not trust that God knows what he is talking about. That is an a priori truth, as far as I am concerned.

When we trust someone we do what he or she suggests, especially when we are unsure of what we are doing. We seek out confirmation that we are doing the “right” thing in the “right” way. I saw this when I was a Salesman: so many people needed to see articles from Consumer Reports or Better Business Bureau ratings or letters from customers justifying using my company because we did such a great job. Did they really think I would show them complaint letters? And I realized that these people had no faith in their own decision-making ability but total faith in other people’s ability to decide. In a similar way, so many congregations are constantly preached to about God’s love and compassion and forgiveness, all of which are good things, but when these are the only things that are talked about, the congregation is not given the chance to trust God as they should. Talking only about love and forgiveness is like third party confirmation- the people hear all about what they want to hear but they don’t learn what they need to know. And what they need to know is that God is there even when troubles are all around them. The leaders of God’s people must be trusted, and that trust must be turned to God.

We can (and should) question our human leadership, and we can ask God why (he can handle that), but we must not ask God to prove why what he says is something we should do. That is disrespectful and demonstrates lack of faith. Yes- ask God why things happen; Yes- ask God why whatever you are going through is happening to you; Yes- ask God why he is allowing something to happen. You can always ask God why he wants you to do something but you should never ask God to prove to you why you should do it.

Can you see the subtle but very important difference here? It is OK to ask God to explain something to you but it is not OK to demand he prove what he says to be something you agree you should do.  When God says do not eat pork, there are those who can explain why pork is unsafe using health studies about pork and Trichinosis, and others will use that to explain why we don’t need to obey that law anymore because of the USDA. In both cases, what we are doing, really, is trying to understand the “why” of Gods’ law so that we can justify obeying it.

My point is that the moment we try to understand something in order to justify it we are showing distrust in God. There is absolutely no reason why we need to understand any of God’s laws- NO reason! He is God, and that is all the justification “why” anyone needs; anything more than that and you are being faithless, obstinate, stiff-necked and rebellious.

So do yourself a favor- just forget trying to understand why when it comes to God and his commandments. It’s a useless and impossible thing to do because the finite (us) can never understand the infinite (God.)

Parashot Tazria / Metzora Leviticus 12:1-15:33

This Shabbat is a double parashah reading. There are times when we read two parashot instead of one to sort of “catch up” so that we stay on the annual schedule. We read out of sequence for the Pesach Shabbat, and now we are reading two parashot so we can get back on schedule.

These parashot deal with cleanliness of women after childbirth, as well as leprosy (which might be any skin-related infection or disease, from leprosy to a rash of some sort that looks similar) on people, clothes and even their homes (perhaps this is a form of mildew? We know today there are some forms of mildew that are deadly.) Finally there are the laws about issuances from the body, such as oozing sores and chronic loss of fluids. The readings tell us how to identify the contagious from the non-contagious forms, and what sacrifices should be made to complete the cleansing of the person or article that was unclean.

What I want to talk about is really simple- it has (pretty much) nothing to do with these laws, but it does have it’s basis in why we have these laws.

The reason for these laws is….I don’t know why. Do you? Obviously, we don’t want people with contagious diseases being allowed to walk amongst the non-infected, but why does a girl birth require a longer period of waiting before being cleansed than a boy? How can killing an animal and placing it’s blood on my ear, thumb and toe clean me?

These laws fall into the category (for me, at least) of Chukim: laws for which we do not understand the reason. And what I want to say about these today is simply this: it doesn’t matter why. That’s right- do you really think that understanding why God gave us these laws and what their meaning is all about will get you any closer to salvation?  All it can do is satisfy our curiosity, and (maybe) make us feel a little more desirous to obey. I think we can easily understand that these laws of cleanliness are another form of making sure the people of God are separated from the rest of the world, of clean not being soiled by the unclean, where our physical cleanliness represents our spiritual cleanliness.

But, again, if we ask the “Acid Test” question, “How does this affect my salvation?”, the answer has to be that understanding the reasons behind these laws will not “save” us. Obedience is how we get blessings, but it is faith alone that saves us. Faithful observance is how we demonstrate our faith, so it doesn’t matter why God wants a woman to wait a month after giving birth to a girl but only two weeks after a boy before she presents herself to the Kohan for cleansing. It doesn’t matter why we wait outside the camp 7 days and not 10, or 3, or at all. It doesn’t matter why God gave us these laws and it doesn’t matter why He wants us to do these things.

What does matter is that He tells us these are to be done. That’s it; that’s all we need, and all anyone should be concerned about. I once read that any god that can be understood by the mind of Man is not worthy of the worship of Man. I think that’s a great statement- it certainly makes sense to me. If I can understand God’s purposes, and I can understand all that He does and why, how much more “holy” can He be than me? The Bible tells us God is holy and high above us, that our holiness is but filthy rags compared to His holiness. I mean, just looking upon His presence will kill us! So how can I expect, in any way, to understand Him? To be at the same level with God, intellectually or spiritually, to make sense of everything He says and demands?

How many people have you met during your lifetime that drive themselves crazy (and eventually those around them, too) worrying about things that they have no right or need to worry about? Don’t they drive you nuts, along with themselves, when they worry about the price of eggs in China, or how someone may feel about something that someone else might do or say? If I do this, then someone, somewhere, might have some problem with it so I better not do it. Oy! I hate that! There’s nothing wrong with being compassionate, but don’t waste compassion on self-doubt and a poor self-image. And don’t waste your intellectual and spiritual energy trying to make sense of something that you will never understand. Stay focused on what you need to do to keep yourself right with God.

These laws in Leviticus, as well as other places in the Torah, are given to us by God to separate us from the rest of the world, to show us how to be holy because He is holy and because we are to represent Him; they are to guide us in our everyday lives with regard to worshipping God and treating each other. That’s it. That’s all we need to know.

And if that isn’t enough for you, then the strength of your faith is what you should be worrying about, and not why turtle doves can be an acceptable substitute for lambs.

Parashah Shemini (the Eighth day) Leviticus 9 – 11

The first part of this Parashah has Aaron completing the offerings he is to make as his entry into the priesthood, and his sacrifice is accepted by God, as evidenced by God’s fire coming down to burn up the offering. This miraculous event was witnessed by the people. Then God sends His fire, again, but this time to burn up Aaron’s two oldest sons, who have acted wrongly by offering their fire before the Lord in a way that was disrespectful and unwarranted.

We don’t really know exactly what they did; it seems clear that they were drunk when they did it because the very first thing God says after destroying them is to Aaron, and He says that Aaron and his sons should never have intoxicating drink when serving the Lord. Aaron and his remaining sons were not even allowed to mourn, but the people were allowed to mourn for them. I believe this shows that those of us who are to serve the Lord are to be separated from the people to serve only the Lord, so even our most personal connections are secondary to serving God.

The last chapter of this parashah defines the laws of Kashrut, the Kosher Laws. I believe that too often people think Kosher means clean, and that is the general understanding and meaning, but these laws go beyond just clean and unclean. These laws are part of the Chukim: ordinances and regulations that are supra-natural, meaning these are regulations for which we don’t or can’t understand the reason why God gave them to us. To remain Kosher is more than a physical clean- it is spiritual. To disobey is a violation of everything that God stands for.

Just because we don’t understand the reason for these laws doesn’t mean they aren’t to be obeyed. If you allow me to paraphrase: Ours is not to reason why, ours is to obey or die.

Thanks to Yeshua, the absoluteness of the prior statement is somewhat reduced, since His sacrifice keeps us from the death we deserve for violating Torah.

The Kosher Laws are simple when you break it down to it’s base components: don’t eat any mammal that isn’t a ruminant, and only eat fish that have scales and fins. For birds, no raptors, no ratites, just stick to ducks, chickens, turkeys and pigeons.

All the more difficult regulations, no meat and dairy together, separate dishes, specially prepared, etc. are Rabbinical and although they are not bad, in and of themselves, they are much more difficult to observe than what God says we are to do.

The Rabbinical laws are not Chukim, Mishpatim or Mitzvot- they are human in origin and not God-given. They are the same sorts of things that Yeshua had trouble with: human regulations made more important that God’s commandments. God said don’t boil a calf in it’s mothers milk; He never said eating a cheeseburger is a one-way ticket to hell. These extreme Rabbinical regulations do have a good purpose- they are there to help prevent us from trespassing the law. It is called “Building Fences Around the Law”: let’s say you have a law which you don’t want to disobey, or trespass against, so, nu? How do you keep out trespassers? You build a fence. Well, as we are Jewish and one question with one answer is just never going to be enough, we need another question: “What if I accidentally tripped over the fence?” The answer: build another fence around the fence so it is harder for you to get past them both. This is then repeated, and repeated, ad infinitum, until we end up with the plethora of kosher regulations we have today, which are so numerous and complicated that the simple rules of “no shellfish, no pork: only ruminants, chicken, duck and turkey, and nothing else” have gotten completely lost. We are so concerned about which fences we should build that we have lost sight of the laws they are designed to protect.

The real issue with Leviticus 11 is the teaching in the Christian world that it is not important anymore. Misinterpretations of Acts 10 and Mark 7 have been used to teach people that Yeshua told us that you don’t need to be Kosher anymore. I devote an entire chapter in my book about this, and have mentioned it often in blogs. Essentially, it comes down to this: if Yeshua is the living Torah and the Word that has become flesh, then how can He tell us to do anything that is against what the Torah says? It is the same as denying Himself. It also means that, since God the Father said these commandments are to be throughout your generations, if Yeshua taught to ignore them then He is calling God a liar and going against the word of God. Does that sound like Yeshua, to you?

Kosher laws are as valid today as they have always been: following them won’t get you into heaven, and ignoring them won’t send you to hell (any faster than violating any of the other 613 commandments in Torah, at least a few of which we all violate every day.) I am not condoning ignoring Kashrut, or any commandment from God. When I say not obeying will not send us to hell, it is only because we disobey something in the Torah every day, every one of us. Yes, if you were perfect in every other commandment but you had pork rinds last night watching the game, and if you died prior to being able to offer a guilt sacrifice to be forgiven for eating pork rinds, you would die in your sin. God doesn’t grade on a curve- if you sin, any sin, you are a sinner and unable to be in His presence.

That’s how Yeshua’s sacrifice works for us- His once and for all sacrifice is what keeps us close to God so if we die in our sin, His righteousness will cleanse us before the Lord.

Kosher is still valid, as are all the other mitzvot, mishpatim and chukim in Torah. All valid, all required, none to be ignored. Yeshua did NOT do away with the law- He confirmed it, He explained it to us so we could could understand the deeper, more spiritual nature of these laws, and He lived them to demonstrate what we should be doing.

If you have time, go to the Search button at the bottom right of the page and search for “WWJD?”, then read that blog to see in more detail what I am talking about, and please consider taking the simple challenge I offer there. I truly believe that if you accept my challenge it will make a major difference in your life, even if only to help you better understand Yeshua.

Please don’t think I am saying you need to be “under the law” to be saved; you don’t. On the other hand, that is no reason to disobey them.