Author: Steven R. Bruck

Parashah Chukkat 2018 (Statutes) Numbers 19 – 22:1

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As always, there is just so much in this reading to talk about. We are told about the cleansing ritual using the ashes of the Red Heifer, Miriam dies and Moses and Aaron, in providing water from the rock lose their right to enter the land. We read how God punishes the people with snakes for their constant rebellious attitude, of Arad attacking the Israelites and being destroyed, as well as the victory over Sichon and Og, kings of the lands to the East of the Jordan River (later to be occupied by Gad, Reuben and half of Manasseh.)

I want to interpose one thought here, not to be discussed in length, but can you imagine how disappointed Moses and Aaron must have felt when God told them they could not enter the land? This is at the end of their journey- it has been nearly 40 years and all that time Moses and Aaron were looking forward to being in the land God promised their forefathers. Now this one mistake and they are out! There is a real lesson here, but it will be for another time.

Today’s message is a simple one, based on the regulations for preparing the ashes of the Red Heifer.

Let’s start off by saying that this regulation is one that even Solomon is said to have never been able to understand. The ashes are to purify one who is unclean, but everything to do with preparing the ashes renders one unclean to start with! This is quite a conundrum- what I need to make me clean will make me unclean as I prepare it! HUH?

If someone was to ask my why God gave these instructions, I have what I consider to be the definitive answer: it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter why God says we should do something, or what his reasons are for telling us not to do something. The only thing that matters is that God said so.

Humans have curiosity and that is a blessing; without curiosity there can be no advancement or improvement. Yet curiosity is a two-edged sword in that too much curiosity can lead us down a path that has a very bad ending. I refer to how people constantly use human reasoning to explain why God gave certain commandments. We shouldn’t eat pork because pigs carry trichinosis;  no sexual relations during the time of Niddah because studies show that sexual activity during the menstrual cycle increases the chance of cervical cancer; do not have sexual relations with close family members because incest causes genetic mutations, etc..

God doesn’t give us the reasons for his commandments and regulations but we need to know why so we figure it out on our own. I believe we do this because once we know why God said to do something we can then come up with a reason why it is no longer necessary.

For example: yes, way back then pigs carried diseases but today the USDA and proper cooking equipment prevents us from being infected so we don’t need to do that anymore.  You see? For those who want to reject God’s laws but not get in “trouble” for doing so, knowing why God said to do something is the means by which they can justify their ends, which is that they don’t need to do it anymore.

The faithful Believer knows that it doesn’t matter why God says what he says; what matters is that he said it and we are obligated to faithfully accept that it is good for us and we should obey our Father, our King and our Savior. Yeshua said that if we do not come to God as little children (meaning we should have unconditional and total trust) we can never enter the Kingdom of God.

Are you faithful enough to do what God says without questioning why? If not, I respectfully suggest you ask yourself, “Why? Why can’t I just do what God says to do without needing to why he wants me to?”

I can give you the answer: pridefulness. It is your prideful desire to do only what you really want to do and that will eventually weaken your faith.  In my book, “Back to Basics: God’s Word vs. Religion” I address this in the chapter I call “Buffet Believers.”  That is what I call people who look through the bible, pick and choose which commandments they are comfortable with and make excuses for rejecting the ones they don’t want to obey. And when they are done filling their plate with their favorite foods, they sit complacently by and tell others that try to take everything on the table they are wrong to eat so much.

When it comes to Psalm 34:8 (“Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”) gluttony is not only a good thing, it is a blessed activity. God has provided us with spiritual manna which we call commandments, and the more we partake of that food the more blessed our lives will be.

It doesn’t matter why, it only matters that God said so. That is true faith.

Did Yeshua (Jesus) Ever Sin?

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(Too dressed-down to do a video today. )

I present this drash today only as something interesting to think about.

Did Yeshua ever sin? The answer has to be a very loud, “NO!! He was the sinless lamb of God; he was in perfect obedience to the Torah his whole life; he couldn’t have sinned. Ever. NO! NO! NO!”

But, still and all, if he had once or twice committed a sin couldn’t he still have died a sinless lamb of God?

Let’s look at what God says about his forgiveness of sin:

“…on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins.” – Leviticus 16:30

“…as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” – Psalm 103:8-12

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. – Isaiah 1:18

“In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back.” – Isaiah 38:17

“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”   – Jeremiah 31:34

“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. – Micah 7:18-19

These passages show us that once God forgives a sin it is as if that sin never happened. There are many other bible passages that prove this; I didn’t quote any New Covenant passages because everything in the New Covenant is just quoting or paraphrasing what is already said in the Old Covenant.

Now let’s go back to my original question: Did Yeshua ever sin? The bible doesn’t give us any information on this but it does tell us that he underwent B’rit Milah (Circumcision) and that he was in Jerusalem for the festivals, as required by the Torah. We know that he observed all the laws and commandments in the Torah, so if he did sin we can be certain that he would have obeyed the Torah and presented a sin sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem. So if this ever did happen, what then?

According to what God says, if Yeshua had sinned and went through the process of sacrificing an animal to have his sin forgiven then he would be as clean as if he had never sinned. He would be a sinless lamb of God.

Otherwise God would have lied when he told us that when he forgives a sin it is as if it never happened. We could never be “as white as snow” and our sins would never be “put behind” his back. All that we were told about forgiveness would be a lie.

Personally, I don’t believe God lied about his forgiveness and I don’t believe Yeshua ever committed a sin. But I am open to the idea that he might have. After all, doesn’t Isaiah 53 tell us:

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

With all that going on in his life, who is to say he didn’t have a lapse of righteousness now and then and maybe did something wrong?  If he had sacrificed then wouldn’t that sin be gone? Wouldn’t he again be sinless and clean before the Lord? An acceptable sacrifice?

My contention is that he would still have been the sinless lamb of God even if he had sinned, so long as he made the proper sacrifice at the Temple before he was crucified. I say this based on God’s promise that when he forgives a sin it is as if it never happened. And I will go one step further: if Yeshua had sinned and had been forgiven under the sacrificial system, he was (and is) the only human who could have continued to be sinless after that. We can be forgiven our sin, but we will sin again. Thank God (and Yeshua) that when Yeshua replaced the sacrifice at the Temple with his personal sacrifice, we can be forgiven every sin we commit and repent of for the rest of our life.

I feel so sad for those who do not accept Yeshua and, because the Temple no longer exists cannot be forgiven of their sins.

 

Is God’s Name Really a Name?

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I will unquestionably be opening a can of worms with this post, so to all reading this (or watching the video) I ask that you please do not shout back at the monitor or bang your fist on the table shouting “NO! NO! NO!” until the end.

I think this will blow a lot of people’s minds. I know it did mine.

Let’s start with the simple question: What is a “name?”  When I searched on line for an answer, it said, “a word or set of words by which a person, animal, place, or thing is known, addressed, or referred to.”

In the ancient days, many names were more than just a means of identifying someone. Some of the names were almost prophetic in that they described who the person was. Jedidiah is someone beloved by God; Joshua is God’s salvation; Abraham is father of multitudes; Emmanuel means God is with us.  These names didn’t just identify the person but also indicated what we should expect from them during their lifetime.

What about God’s name? There are many names that are used to identify God: God (of course), El, Yah, Shadai, and the Holy Name that is called the Tetragrammaton (I will use the term ‘Tetra” in this discussion just to make it easier to type) which is Y-H-V-H, or also shown as Y-H-W-H.

Most people believe this is God’s Holy Name, the very one he told Moses to use when Moses asked to know what name to tell the people in Exodus 3:13-15. But they are wrong! This is what God told Moses:

Then Moses asked God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ What should I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also told Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.…  (Berean Study Bible) 

So God didn’t give a specific name, he gave a description of who he is when he told Moses to say “I am has sent me to you.”

I have looked in the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh (one of the most respected interpretations of the Tanakh today), my Chumash (The Pentateuch and Haftorahs) edited by Dr. Hertz (Soncino Edition) and also my Tikkun.

NOTE: For those who may not be familiar with the Tikkun, it is a book of the Torah scroll with the Torah Hebrew (a very different font of Hebrew), the modern Hebrew with vowel points and the English translation with commentary of the scriptures. It is used for preparation of chanting the Torah when reading the weekly parashah.

In every one of these highly authentic Jewish volumes, the word used for God in this passage is Elohim (generally meaning is “God is judge”) and he doesn’t use the Y-H-V-H anywhere in this passage. What is used is: אה’ה אשר אה’ה, which means “I am who I am.”

So, nu?  What’s this mean? It means that the Tetra is not the name God gave to Moses to identify who he is to the children of Israel. So now we have to ask, “Where did the Tetra come from?”

It was first used in Genesis 2:4. The very first appearance of the Tetra in the Torah is right after God finished making the earth, in the second half of verse 2:4. The Hebrew says: ב’ומ עשות ‘הוה אלה’מ which in English is translated as ‘When the Lord God..”, which tells us the Tetra is translated from the Torah as “Lord.” The word we use for the Tetra in Judaism is “Adonai”, which means “Lord.”

The Tikkun explains what the Tetra means: it is really an acronym. Each of the letters represent a word, and those words are (I will transliterate): Hah-yah  Ho-veh  veh-yee-yeh, which means “He was, he is and he will be.”

So after all the hullabaloo about the correct spelling of God’s name and how it should be pronounced, we find out that what we have always thought to be God’s Holy Name isn’t really a name! It is an acronym for words that describe the eternal nature of God.

And that fits with God’s command to Moses in front of the burning bush that the name he gave to Moses is how he should be remembered in every generation.  God was not giving Moses a name we should use to call him but how we should remember and refer to him. Remember at the beginning the definition of a name can also mean how we refer to someone? God doesn’t want us to have a specific name for him, he wants us to refer to him for who and what he is. He is our eternal Lord. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And that is what he told Moses he wants us to call him.

People are given a name we can call them during their lifetime, but because God has no lifetime he is known only by his eternal nature.

He is and he was and he shall be: that is what the Tetra means. It is not a name as we define what a name is, it is a memorial to remind us that God is eternal.

And from the very first time we see the Tetra in the Torah it is interpreted as “Lord”, who are we to change it?

So where do we go from here? I suspect that those who absolutely must use the Tetra and pronounce it as they believe it should be pronounced will continue to do so. I hope at least some will reconsider their understanding and verify what I have said here. And there may be some who will start to use “Lord” or “Adonai” as we Jews have been doing forever.

Others may just wander around the house muttering to themselves, “What should I believe? What is right? Who can I trust?”

I can answer that last one: trust God and trust his word. Trust that the interpretation Jews have been using for thousands of years is more dependable (and probably more accurate) than the one many Gentile’s just now learning about God and Yeshua are using.

And always, always, ALWAYS go to the Jewish versions of the Torah and Tanakh (Old Covenant) to see what the Hebrew says. The Torah is absolutely dependable to be the exact same way it is today as it was when it was first written. If you knew all the different ways the Torah is verified when a new one is written you would be able to trust that it is absolutely dependable. The Hebrew, that is- the interpretations are subject to individual bios and predetermined understanding.

I have been reading and studying the bible for over 20 years and after all this time I just now learned that what I have always known to be the Holy Name of God isn’t a name at all. OY! I just love the exciting and new things we learn from God’s word when we really look at it.

Parashah Korach 2018 (Korah) Numbers 16:1 – 18:32

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The great mutiny.

Korach, Abiram and Dathan were all leaders within their respective tribes. Korach was a Levite and the other two were from the tribe of Reuben. They came against Moses and Aaron with accusations of tyranny, in that they accused Moses and Aaron of taking on all the authority of leadership. Korach said that they all God’s people should share in the leadership and offerings, not just Moses and Aaron.

Essentially, they were saying, “Who died and left you both in charge?”

These three had convinced 250 other men, all leaders within the 12 tribes, to follow them and God had them all bring their offering pans to the front of the Tent of Meeting. What happened next was terrible: at the tent of the three who started this rebellion Moses said if these men were correct then they would live long lives, but if they were wrong then the earth would split open and swallow them alive. As soon as he was done speaking, the earth did split open and swallowed Korach, Dathan and Abiram and their family alive, then it came back over them. At the same moment, fire came out from the Tent of Meeting and incinerated the 250 men. The fire was so hot the fire pans, made of bronze, were all melted.

You would think that would satisfy the people that Moses and Aaron were God’s choice, but it didn’t. The very next morning the people accuse Moses and Aaron of murdering God’s people, and God is so angry he sends a plague out that kills tens of thousands. The plague was stopped only when Aaron risked his life by carrying embers from the eternal flame in his fire pan directly into the crowd where the plague was running wild to stop it.  God commanded that the 12 tribal leaders and Aaron place their staffs in the Tent of Meeting to show God’s choice of leader, and in the morning nothing changed except for Aaron’s staff, which not only grew buds but had ripened almonds on it. God then charged the Levites to surround the Tent of Meeting and that they should not allow any of the common people (non-Levites) to come close to it, or to inter-marry with them or have them partake of any of the holy foods. The Levites were to be separated and apart from the rest of the tribes, with no inheritance or job other than the service of the Tabernacle. They are also to give a tithe from the tithes they receive.

The Haftorah reading for this parashah is 1 Samuel, 11-13, which is the story of Samuel anointing Shaul as the first king.  The reasoning is that both Moses and Samuel had to take a rag-tag group of people and form them into a nation, all the while being accountable to God and subject to the same rules and laws that the people were. Whereas Korah rebelled against the leadership of Moses, the people (in the Haftorah) rebelled against Samuel by asking for a king.

I think this Haftorah choice is a good one, but I would add one more thing. I would add Micah 6:8 to the reading, which says:

He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Today’s drash is about the motivation behind Korach’s rebellion, which is obviously jealousy and an over-active desire for power. He thought he was also entitled to be in charge. It is obvious from the influence he had that he was, indeed, an authoritative and important person in his own right. But that wasn’t enough. He found like-minded men in Dathan and Abiram, and their combined influence allowed their little rebellion to grow from just those 3 to a total of 250 people. Jealousy and a desire for power were the motivations, but was that the real cause of their rebellion?

I believe this rebellion was not the result of desiring something but from the lack of something. That something that was lacking was…humility.

The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence and we humans don’t seem to be satisfied with anything. It is ironic that sometimes those who have the least are generally the ones that are most satisfied with what they do have. The rich only want to get richer and when we have plenty we still want to have more. Proverbs 15:17 tells us it is better to have a meal of vegetable in a house full of love than meat in a house full of strife, meaning that appreciating what you have it is better than having but not appreciating it. We also get this same message in Ecclesiastes, where no less than three times we are told to simply eat, drink and be merry and to enjoy whatever God has provided, for that is our lot in life.

Clearly the men in this rebellion did not have the humility to accept God’s chosen leaders or what God had provided for them. Korach was a leader in the tribe of Levite, but he wanted more because he didn’t appreciate the position of importance God had given him. The same went for Abiram and Dathan. As for the 250 men that followed them we are not really told anything about their motivation, but it seems safe to say they were also wanting to have more.

I have often said pridefulness is the mother of all sin, and lack of humility is a symptom of pridefulness.  We must be humble in our lives if we are to be able to serve the Lord. That means accepting what we have and appreciating what God has done for us, every day. I am not saying we should sit by idly and not try to improve ourselves or our financial situations. I am saying that we are to be appreciative for what God has given us and share it willingly with others. We are to respect God’s choice of leadership just as Shaul (Paul) said we should in Romans 13:1:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Finally, trust that God is in charge and will provide what you need. If you want a better job, ask yourself why? Is it only to make more money and have more “toys”? If so, maybe that’s not the best reason. However, if you want a new job so you can be a better provider for your family that is unquestionably a proper reason for wanting more, and when you pray to God for help he will help you.

We must remain humble in our attitude towards God and towards each other. We must be satisfied with God’s provision and make sure that whatever we want, it is for the proper reasons. We can want more, but not if it is for selfish reasons, such as just to have more money, power or influence.

Wanting that is a result of prideful desire will only lead to ruin, whereas a humble desire to do more to please God and provide for others will yield blessings.

Do You Really Want to Risk His Wrath?

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No video today.

I am a member of a number of Christian, Messianic or Hebraic Roots discussion groups. They all have value for learning and sharing ideas, yet it is a shame so many people within these groups undervalue themselves and others with their obnoxious and prideful statements. You can recognize them because when they are faced with opposite opinions they spit out a bunch of bible passages (taken out of context) and eventually end up calling the one(s) disputing with them pagans, Satanists or worse.

When people are discussing a topic and one of them ends up resorting to personal attacks and accusations, that indicates they are not able to adequately defend their position; it also demonstrates both emotional and spiritual immaturity.  Ask them to leave it at “You have your belief and I have mine, so let’s agree to disagree?” and they ignore you, continuing to force their ideas down your throat.

The real issue is pridefulness- those people are too prideful to accept that they may not be the only correct answer. As such they do not have the humility or respect for others to simple allow someone else to have their own belief. Worse than that, they use biblical passages to justify their accusatory and judgmental attitude. It’s always the same thing: God wants us to tell the truth, or God told me this is so, or God says we are to judge others.

They forget God said that we will be judged as we judge others. Oops- that could be a problem!

Whenever I see someone writing these sorts of things, even when they aren’t nasty but just stubbornly refusing to accept that anyone else may have another belief or idea that could also be correct, I think of Job and his friends. I assume we all know the book of Job well enough to recall that after his friends misjudged him because they thought they knew what God was all about, God was not too happy with them. This is what he told them (Job 42:7-9):

After the Lord had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has. So take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf. I will not treat you as you deserve, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has.” So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite did as the Lord commanded them, and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.

Job’s friends had been telling Job all about how God works, what he wants, what he believes, what he knows…basically they were talking for God as if they knew him and what he thought. That is what got God so mad.

People who tell others absolutely that we need to use God’s holy name, how it is pronounced, what God wants us to do, what God told us isn’t important, why God made the rules he made, etc. all are doing exactly what Jobs friends did. I suspect, although I can’t say for certain, that God still isn’t too happy with people who do that. Since God tells us he doesn’t change it only seems logical that if Jobs’ friends ticked of the Lord with their assumptions about what he feels and thinks, people who tell others today what God feels and thinks would be in the same spot Job’s friends put themselves.

For the record, let me say there are many, many places in the bible where God tells us, absolutely, what he likes and dislikes, what he says is wrong and what he says is right, and these things we can state clearly are how God feels. He told us so.

My complaint (and concern) is for those people who assume they know what God wants and tell others what they should believe or do. I believe when they do that they are risking his wrath.

I would like to ask people to be polite and respectful of others. We can speak the truth with love and if we believe something absolutely but someone else doesn’t, then let’s justify our opinion without attacking their opinion. And never attack a person for what they believe. When I think someone is relating a misinterpretation of a biblical passage, I will say I believe what they have been taught is wrong and then I will interpret the passage the way I believe it should be done. I will also ask them to re-read it praying for holy spirit guidance. I won’t say they are wrong, but that they were taught incorrectly. This way they (hopefully) won’t take it as a personal attack. You can’t change someone’s mind, but you can punch holes in their argument with facts. Again, you can attack their position but do not attack them. And if they are adamant not to change their mind and start to get upset or hostile, then end it. Wipe the dust from your sandals and move on.

There is an old joke: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

We can’t change someone’s beliefs or mind unless they are open to listening. If it becomes obvious that they aren’t going to change their mind, you’ve done all you can. Move on to the next subject. I have often just told people I won’t change my mind and I see they won’t change theirs, so let’s move on to something else. It’s sad that most of the time my respectful attempt to end the discussion reaches deaf ears.

Let’s end today’s message with a quote from Proverbs 12:15:

The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.

 

Does Praying to God to Forgive Someone Else Do Any Good?

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No video for this message- it’s a short one.

Just about everyone knows that when he was being nailed to the execution stake Yeshua asked God to “forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”

When we pray for others it is called Intercession. Intercession is a good thing, and I believe it has shown itself to be a powerful means to bring corporate prayer to God’s throne, and that God will act upon it.

But what about interceding with God by asking that he forgive someone else’s sins? Doesn’t the bible tells us that we must each, individually, ask for forgiveness of our sins?

Wasn’t one of the arguments used against Yeshua during his ministry that he was forgiving the sins of others, which only God can do?  Of course, Yeshua answered them by showing that he was authorized to forgive sin by healing the paraplegic man (Luke 5:17-26) and through other healings. But that was Yeshua…I am not him, and neither is anyone else reading this (well, maybe he is reading it but you know what I mean) so when we pray for others to have their sins forgiven, will God do that?

I don’t know for sure- after all, God can (and will) do whatever he wants to. On the other hand, he is restricted by his own rules and regulations. Therefore, I believe when we pray to God for him to forgive someone else’s sin(s), it may make God more willing to be merciful in his punishment of that person but I do not believe God will forgive anyone of their sins unless that person is repentant and asks for forgiveness.

As such, we should pray for God to open the eyes of the sinner, to send angels of mercy to the sinner to help him or her see the error of their ways, but I believe that praying to God to forgive someone’s sins when the person themself doesn’t care is useless.

Each of us will be held accountable for our actions and words when we come before the Lord on the Day of Judgement, and without Yeshua standing at our side we really have no chance. When we “eat sour grapes” it is our own teeth that will be “set on edge” (Ezekiel 18:2) so we need to go to God, individually, to ask for forgiveness. And we must be truly repentant (do T’Shuvah) when we ask God to forgive us.

I believe intercession is a wonderful thing, and I confess I am not compassionate or caring enough to intercede for others, but many are. It is a gift from God, and as such should be used carefully and with discernment.

When you want to ask God to come to the aid of a sinner, do so by asking for the sinner to be made aware of their sin and to be shown the pathway to forgiveness. That is what we can pray for, and then we must trust in God to take whatever actions are necessary to do that. Ultimately, though, we are each and every one of us personally accountable to God for our actions and words and, as such, must ask for forgiveness individually.

I believe by praying for someone who is a sinner to be shown the way to be forgiven is how we help that person find their salvation.

Parashah Shelach Lecha 2018 (Send out) Numbers 13 – 15

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The people have been travelling in the desert for a little more than 2 years and have come to the border of the Promised Land. Moses, per God’s command, sends out spies to reconnoiter the land; one member from each of the 12 tribes. They come back 40 days later and of the 12 men, only Caleb from the tribe of Judah and Joshua from Ephraim give a favorable report. The other’s announce that they saw fortified cities and the Nephalim there (giants who were traditionally fallen angels) and that they could not possibly conquer those peoples. They spread fear and disappointment among the Israelites to the point where the people wanted to stone Moses. God tells Moses he will destroy these people and make a new nation out of Moses, but Moses intercedes (again, as usual) for the people. God relents what he was thinking of doing and decides to kill the 10 men by plague who started this rebellion, and that everyone over the age of 20 would die in the desert for their part of the rebellion. The people decide to attack anyway, and get their tuchas waxed. The parashah finishes with a man gathering sticks on Shabbat being stoned for his blatant disregard for God’ commandment, and the wearing of ztit-ztit  (fringes hanging on four sides of the garment) so that people will see this on other’s garments and remember to obey God.

Should we discuss the importance of the number 40, here in 40 days of spying and 40 years of wandering? Or maybe we can discuss how could people remain so faithless after 2 years of living with wondrous miracles happening every day (cloud, fire, manna)? The faithfulness of Joshua and Caleb is also something that could have deep meaning for us, in that we need to show faith is still alive even when living among faithless people.

I would like to talk about something that we see in this parashah but isn’t actually part of the story.

It came to me as I was reading about how God said he would make a nation out of Moses. My thought went right to: really? Moses is already in his 80’s, and I know that God can certainly give Moses more children at this age. But to make a nation out of him? It took some 400 years living in one of the most fertile areas of Egypt for the family of Jacob (initially numbering about 63 people) to grow into the nation Moses was leading.  Was God really willing to put everything on hold for another 400 years or so before the people entered the land?

As I was asking myself this question I thought about the idea of predestination. First off, I do not believe in predestination, but I do believe in predetermination. The difference is the former implies we have no choice and there is no real free will, whereas the latter means we have been chosen but we have free will so we can choose to accept or refuse. The “glitch” in predetermination is this: if God has chosen me for something and I refuse to do it, then what?

The answer is what Mordecai said to Hadassah (Esther) when she refused to see the king to intercede for the people (Esther 4:14) :

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place,{underlining added} but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?

God had predetermined that Hadassah would be the means for him to save his people from the enemy of the Jews, Haman. She had the option to do nothing to help, and some people won’t like hearing this but the fact is that at first that’s exactly what she did. Her message back to Mordicai the first time he asked her to intercede was that the king normally will kill anyone (meaning wife) not called to him. Essentially, she was saying, “No way!” Then Mordecai pretty much threatened her with discovery and death herself, and then she realized she didn’t have much of a choice.

Now, back to the parashah. Moses could have told God “Fine with me- I’ll get busy with Zepporah tonight.” And then the bible we know today would be different, but the end result would be the same.

That’s the point. God promised the land of Israel to the descendants of Abraham. It was predetermined that Moses would lead those descendants into the land. If the ones Moses had with him chose not to enter, so be it. God would raise another nation out of Moses to enter, but one way or another the children of Abraham would have that land.

This is the reason that throughout history God’s promise that Abraham’s seed would be in the land has been dependable.  It doesn’t matter when something God wants to be done gets done, the point is that it WILL get done, sooner or later.

How many people do we read about in the bible who refused to do God’s calling and never changed their minds? No one, you say? You don’t recall anywhere in the bible reading about someone who God had determined to do something wonderful but never accepted the calling? Of course not. I am sure there were many who fit that description, but because they did not accept the call, they never made it into history.

God’s will is insurmountable. His will will be done; if you are called to do it and do so, you will receive wonderful blessings for obedience. If you are called to do it and refuse, you just keep on going as you are and someone else will be raised up to take your place.

This is why it is so important for us to keep our eyes open and our ears cleaned out. When we hear God’s calling on our life we need to be willing to answer with “Whatever you say, Lord.” or we will be missing out. This doesn’t mean a faithful worshiper of God will be refused his or her place in eternity- not accepting the call from God doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to be damned. It just means that the wonderful things that God had planned for you will go to someone else. I don’t know about you, but I would rather take God’s blessings than give them away.

I confess to you that my biggest fear in life is to not hear or ignore God’s calling, if and when I have one. Right now I believe this ministry is what God wants me to do, and I pray for its success (for his glory) and also that I am right when I think this is his calling for me. I really do fear that I may miss the calling God has for me.

Pray that you hear the calling God has for you, and even more so, pray for the strength to accept and fulfill that calling if, and when, you hear it. It’s one thing to hear the phone ringing and another thing altogether to be willing to answer it.