Author: Steven R. Bruck
Parashah Naso 2021 (Take) Numbers 4:21 – 7
As we read at the beginning of this book, the first thing that God had Moses do was to take a census to determine the number of men able to go to battle. In this parashah, God has Moses count the Levites and identifies who is to carry which parts of the Tabernacle.
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God gives instructions that all lepers must be placed outside the camp, in order that the camp not become defiled because Adonai will dwell within the camp.
He also gives instructions regarding when a husband suspects a wife of adultery, restitution for sinning against a brother Israelite, laws for vow-making, and the manner in which the Cohen shall bless the people, known as the Aaronic Blessing (Numbers 6:23-26.)
This parashah ends detailing (in exacting detail) the gifts that each of the twelve tribes brought to the Tabernacle after it had been set up and anointed.
In my Chumash, the commentary states the gifts were identical because there was such harmony between the tribes that no one tribe wanted to outdo the other, therefore they all gave the same gifts.
But then it goes on to state how the gifts were representative of the history of each tribe, whereas each identical item had a different significance, relating specifically to that tribe. These different meanings were based on the tribe’s history.
For example, Numbers 7:12 tells us the first tribe to bring their gifts was Judah, presented by Nahshon, and the Midrash tells us that Nahshon was honored to be the first to present the gifts because when the Red Sea was parted and the Israelites were hesitant to enter, Nahshon boldly plunged in, trusting that God would protect them.
Another example was that the silver charger presented by Reuben’s tribe recalled to mind that Reuben’s words saved Joseph’s life, quoting Proverbs 10:20 which says “The tongue of the just is as choice silver.”
Of course, none of this is found anywhere in the Torah. These stories and comments are the fabrication of the Rabbis over the years, which is what the Talmud really is all about: it is called the Oral Law but in reality, it is rabbinical mythology that tries to explain things we read in the Torah.
Another example is that we read at the end of Genesis 17 about the circumcision of Abraham, and the very next chapter starts with the visitation of the three angels. Well, the Torah has no defined timeline between these two events, but the Talmud tells us the angels visited on the third day after Abraham’s B’rit Milah, the day when the pain is the worst, and that it was a sign of Abraham’s devotion and humility that despite his pain, he got up and served these strangers.
Total fiction, not biblically substantiated in any way, but still and all a really nice story, and probably not that far from the truth, with regards to the type of man Abraham was.
I believe the Talmud is a wonderful book, full of much wisdom from many of the most studious and scholarly Rabbis of the past couple of millennia. BUT…it is not scripture. It is a work of fiction based on scripture, not unlike Hollywood making up what seems to be a nice way to see things that happened in history, but it’s not real.
Now, having said that, we can’t say all of it wasn’t real, because the truth is we do not know the time between the visitation of the angels and Abraham’s circumcision. It could have been days or even months later- we just don’t know, so the Talmud narrative could be true. Who knows? Maybe God gave a special insight to whoever came up with that, or maybe it is just something someone thought would fit in nicely.
We’ll never know, but to read it doesn’t weaken our faith, and that is an important point to understand when confirming my belief that studying the Talmud is not a bad idea. What we read may be man-made, but it doesn’t do anything to reduce our faith, and actually is designed to increase our understanding of God and his ways, which can only strengthen our faith.
Studying the Talmud will, at the very least, give you a good “feel’ for the Jewish mindset, and it will especially help you to understand Jewish Logic, which is my term for the way Jews argue. A Jew will never tell you what something is until he first tells you everything it isn’t. When you learn to recognize this methodology, then the letters that Shaul (Paul) wrote will become much easier to understand, and you will be able to see why they have been misunderstood and misinterpreted by Christians for so many years.
The Talmud also instructs us in how we are to obey the Torah in our everyday lives, which is called Halacha (The Way to Walk), and is what the Orthodox and Chasidic Jew learns from the time they can understand right from wrong. In the more religious sects of Judaism, the study of the Talmud comes even before the study of the Torah!
Sometimes we read instructions in the Torah and we can’t understand the reasons why God gave them. Often, there seems to be something missing: for example, we read about sacrificing an animal, and the Torah states we must treat our animals humanely, but there is nothing anywhere in the Torah telling us how to kill the animal humanely. However, the Talmud describes this process, which is called the Shechitah. So, the Talmud sort of “fills in” the missing parts, and even though it is all man-made tradition, I have never seen anything in the Talmud (although I am certainly not well-versed in it) that would be detrimental to our faith in God. The underlying foundation of the Talmud is the very word of God, so it builds on this and adds to it in a manner that is designed to help us better worship and obey the Torah.
And although Yeshua certainly had trouble with some of the rabbinic regulations, which later were part of the Talmud, he wasn’t against all man-made traditions, only those which had been given precedence over the instructions from God.
So, with regard to today’s parashah reading, reading the Torah narrative seems remarkably redundant, each of the twelve tribes presenting the exact same things, so why didn’t Moses just write what was given, and end it by saying each tribe gave the same? I don’t know, but we do know that when we see things repeated in the Bible it is usually to make an impact on the importance of what we are reading. Maybe, just maybe, Moses repeated each tribe’s gifts so that later someone, like whoever wrote about this in the Talmud, could explain how each identical item represented something unique to the tribe that presented it?
That’s why the Talmud isn’t such a bad book to know: you just have to be able to separate the wheat from the tares, so to speak, when reading it. Knowing the Tanakh is the first step, so that when you read the Talmud stories you can know which is biblical and which is not.
A funny aside: when I was touring Israel in 2016, I was the only Jew in the group and our Israeli guide was an expert in relating the Bible stories to the geography we were visiting. However, he was relating Talmudic stories as well as biblical stories, so throughout the trip, I kept raising my hand and saying, “Yosi- that was from the Talmud, right?” to which he would confess it was. I don’t know if he appreciated that or not, but we are still friends on Facebook, so I guess it didn’t really bother him.
In my opinion, a student of the Bible should not ignore the Talmud but become at least a little familiar with it as a means of better rounding out one’s understanding of Judaism and the Jewish mindset.
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Why The Judeans Didn’t Fight For Yeshua
When Yeshua was preaching in Jerusalem, thousands of people came to hear him, as did thousands when he was wandering from one Judean town to another.
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Yet, despite there being thousands who accepted Yeshua as the Messiah God promised to send, after the Sanhedrin found him guilty of a capital crime and the power elite in Jerusalem aroused the crowds to ask for his death, the people followed their lead and called for his crucifixion.
Have you ever asked yourself, “If they knew he was the Messiah, why didn’t they rebel against the Sanhedrin to save Yeshua’s life?”
Most people will say because they didn’t want to be thrown out of the temple or made into a social pariah. In fact, we read in the Gospels how many who followed Yeshua were doing so in secret because the people had been told that anyone following Yeshua would be excommunicated.
But there may have been a different reason.
In John 11:47 we read that the Cohen HaGadol, Caiaphas, suggested that Yeshua be killed in order to save the people. The leaders of Judea were deathly afraid that because of the commotion being stirred up in the city and around the Temple, Rome would come down hard on the people and possibly no longer allow them to practice Judaism. You see, Judea was a rare example of Rome allowing the inhabitants to maintain their religion; normally, when Rome took over, the populace was forced to practice the Roman paganist religion. There were Roman soldiers stationed throughout the land, and especially around the Temple, so any commotion or public unrest, such as Yeshua throwing out the money changers or the argumentation between people about accepting or rejecting him, could cause Rome to no longer allow Judaism to be practiced. Besides the obvious horror that would cause, it also would mean the members of all the Sanhedrins and the Temple officials (meaning all the Levites and Cohanim) would be out of a job.
Alright, then, that explains why the leadership wanted him dead, but that doesn’t fully answer why the people didn’t rebel against their leaders when they believed Yeshua to be the Messiah.
I believe the answer is in the Torah.
In the Book of Deuteronomy (D’varim), Chapter 17 is one of the places Moses is instructing the people about their need to rid Israel of anyone who is rejecting God’s instructions, laws, commandments, or regulations. He also states that any case which is too difficult for the local judges is to be brought before the Cohanim where God places his name, which (eventually) would be the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.
Now, here is where the answer to the question of why the people didn’t revolt against the Sanhedrin is found. In Deuteronomy 17: 12, Moses gives this command to the people:
Anyone presumptuous enough not to pay attention to the cohen appointed there to serve Adonai your God or to the judge — that person must die.
Wow! The Torah says that anyone who goes against the decision of the judges, which in this case is the Jerusalem Sanhedrin, is to be killed. Not just excommunicated, as the Gospels infer, but killed!
And Yeshua had just been tried and convicted by the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, who were calling for his death.
No wonder there was no outcry of “Unjust!” or “Down with the Sanhedrin!” The Torah, itself, forbade anyone to rebel against the judgment of the court. Even though those courts were not really filled with Cohanim, who were Levites, but often enough with political “hacks” who were appointed by Herod, the least qualified king Israel ever saw. Herod was not a descendant of David, and many of the members of the Sanhedrin throughout the land were not Levites or Cohanim, but political appointees. In the writings of Josephus, he records that Caiaphas was made high priest by the Roman procurator Valerius Gratus after Simon ben Camithus had been deposed.
Maybe, now, we can better understand why there was no civil upheaval or rebellion against the Sanhedrin, and why the people were behind the call for Yeshua to be crucified.
The Judeans weren’t against Yeshua: they were obeying what is written in the Torah.
Talk about irony.
It was just the other day when I read that verse in Deuteronomy and the Ruach (Spirit) gave me this connection, and since then I am convinced that the people who did accept Yeshua as the Messiah were between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they knew he was sent by God and that rejecting him was tantamount to rejecting God; on the other hand, they knew that to disobey the Torah was also to reject God. There was no way they could win, so they went with what made the most sense at the time, and obeyed the Torah. This did, also, keep them from being socially ostracized and excommunicated from the temple.
Eventually, as we all know, the followers of Yeshua continued to grow, and as more Gentiles entered into salvation through Messiah Yeshua, the teachings of Yeshua became more polluted, misunderstood, and eventually mutated into the form of Christianity we have today, which is nothing like what Yeshua taught but what Constantine created in 325 C.E.
But that, my friends, is a different story.
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Is Yeshua Really Our Savior?
Well, that’s an interesting question, isn’t it?
The obvious answer is: YES! Of course, he is- that’s what the Messiah is all about!
Didn’t you hear that he died for our sins?
Didn’t you read in Isaiah that he was wounded for our transgressions?
Didn’t he, himself, say that the only way to the Father is through him?
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Yes, I know all that, but let’s step back for a moment and let me ask you…who sent him? Is Yeshua really our savior or the tool of our true savior, God?
The Messiah is the one who brings us back into communion with God, who removes our sins so that we can come into the presence of the Lord, and he is the one God promised to send us throughout the Tanakh, in order to provide a means for us to have our sins forgiven.
At first, God provided for the removal of sin through the sacrificial system, where an innocent animal is killed as a substitute for the death we deserve for having committed the sin. Innocent blood shed in placement of our blood, which should be shed.
When the animal is sacrificed, it has died for our sins; it was wounded for our transgressions, and by it’s stripes we are healed.
Sound familiar?
So, is that sheep our Savior? Do we call upon the name of the bull we killed when we ask for forgiveness?
Of course not- they are just sacrificial animals. So why, then, if they died for our sins do we not call them our savior? The truth is, they were- if not for that animals’ death, we would have to die.
So, nu? What makes Yeshua’s actions any different from these animals?
The difference is that the animal didn’t choose to die for us, and Yeshua did.
He had the opportunity to reject his role as the Messiah, just as Jonah (initially) rejected his calling to save Nineveh. Yeshua could have decided that he didn’t want to be the Messiah and simply live out his life as a normal, although highly spiritual, man. And I believe, if that had happened, God would simply have created another Messiah, in the same way that he would have saved the Jews in Shushan, as Mordecai told Esther in the Megillah of Hadassah 4:14:
For if you fail to speak up now, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from a different direction;
However, as we all know, Yeshua did not reject his calling to be the Messiah, the tool through which God provided the chance for everyone in the world to be saved from the eternal consequences of their sin.
So, the answer to my original question, “Is Yeshua really our savior?” is “Yes”… and “No.”
Yes- what he did allows us to be forgiven of our sins. He did this voluntarily and of his own free will, and since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem he has become our only means of salvation, which (by definition) makes him our savior.
But the original provider of this means of salvation is God, who divinely created, sent and empowered Yeshua to be the Messiah, so the answer to the question is also “No”, because if not for God there would be no way to be forgiven of our sins, at all. In fact, God is really the only one who can forgive sin. Yes, Yeshua had that authority when he was performing his ministry on earth, but now that his role is to be our Intercessor, he doesn’t forgive us but asks his father to forgive us because we are his sheep, and because he shed his blood for us.
Yeshua doesn’t forgive our sins- only God does. And if you’re not sure about that, then find the biblical passage that says the Messiah sits on the Throne of Judgment in heaven.
Now, there, there…don’t get all confused, and don’t worry that you have to change your beliefs about Yeshua being the savior of the world, because he is. But God is the ultimate power and authority, to whom Yeshua humbly submits (which he made clear throughout the Gospels), therefore God is our Savior because he sent Yeshua, who gave his human life so we could have eternal life.
Yeshua saved us when he gave his life as a substitution for ours, providing the pathway to salvation, but this was only possible because God sent him, which means our real savior is God.
God is the ultimate Savior of the world, and when we individually accept Yeshua as our Messiah, he becomes our personal savior.
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The Bible Confirms that the Torah Is Still Valid for Christians
I know, I know…so many of you are saying, “He’s wrong! Paul said that Jesus did away with the law, and the Elders in Jerusalem said Christians only had to do 4 things in their letter in Acts 15, and besides that, I have always been told that the Torah is just for Jews.”
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Well, that is what you have been told, but you have also been told there is an Easter Bunny, Santa Claus knows what you do better than Big Brother does and that someone from the government is here to help you.
First of all, Paul was a really important and influential man, but he wasn’t and still isn’t, God. Much of what is included in the New Covenant is not from God through Paul, but from Paul to the people in the congregations he started who were having interpersonal and spiritual problems. His letters are not so much divinely inspired instructions as they are his way of teaching ex-pagans how to live in accordance with God’s instructions in the Torah, which is how Paul lived his entire life. Paul sent them little bits and pieces of what they will eventually need to know.
And as for the letter from the Elders to the newly converting (to Judaism) Gentiles, in Acts 15:19-21, James suggested not to put too much of a burden on the Gentiles converting to Judaism and finishes his recommendation to send those 4 requirements with the statement that Moses has been read every Shabbat in the synagogues. That statement clearly means that these newly converting pagans are expected to be worshiping now with the Jews in the synagogues every Shabbat, and there they will learn the rest of the Torah. The 4 requirements were not the total of what Gentiles need to do, it was just the first steps.
OK, so let’s get to what the Bible says to prove that the Torah is still valid, which means be obeyed to the best of one’s abilities, for Christians as well as Jews. In fact, these instructions are for anyone who professes to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and who has accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah. And before anyone argues that no one can do everything in the Torah, let’s all agree that this is true. And even more, there are some requirements in the Torah only appropriate for a select class, such as women or farmers, or priests. When I say “obey the Torah”, I mean whatever instructions are appropriate for you.
What I am going to do is to take things that God said, as well as what some of the Disciples said, and put them together to form this proof. Before anyone accuses me of taking things out of context in order to create my own interpretation, these sentences will be pulled out of their paragraph, but their intent and meaning are not going to be any different than the original context.
We start with Genesis 22:18, where God told Abraham- “And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Later, In Exodus 19:5-7 God tells Moses this about the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham- “Now if you will pay careful attention to what I say and keep my covenant, then you will be my own treasure from among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you will be a kingdom of cohanim (Ed.-priests) for me, a nation set apart.’
Before we go on, let’s clarify something. When God said that the Jews (that’s easier to type than Israelites) were to be a nation of priests, what is it that the priest does? This is essential to understand because the priest, rabbi, minister, whatever does more than just run the weekly service or visit the sick. The priest is the intercessor between us and God, in that he or she serves God by learning what it is that God wants from us and teaching their flock how to live their lives, through example (hopefully), in the way that God wants them to live. The priest is God’s representative on earth to the people and is required to lead us to the proper worship and lifestyle God demands.
Okay, so where were we? Oh, yeah- so far God has told Abraham that his descendants, or even better, let’s say children (here’s the spoiler alert- that includes adopted children) will be a blessing to the world, and he told Moses that the Jews would be God’s nation of priests.
Next, in Deuteronomy 28, the entire chapter is devoted to detailing all the blessings the people who obey God’s instructions, i.e. what is in the Torah, will receive for obedience. It also defines what happens to those who don’t obey, and I’ll tell you this- it ain’t good.
What we have up to now is that God told Abraham his children will be a blessing to the world and told Moses that these children are to be a nation of priests (to the world) and that when they obey God they will receive blessings. This means as priests they will learn to live as God says (in the Torah) and when, as priests, they teach others to do so they all receive blessings.
God says in Exodus 12:49– “The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.” which indicates that those who choose to be part of the Nation of Israel, either spiritually or geographically, will be treated just as a native-born, which means protected by the law and, conversely, required to obey that same law.
And now we tie this all together with what Shaul says in Galatians 3:29– “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
Let’s put this all together:
- The children of Abraham will be a blessing to the world;
- The children of Abraham will be God’s nation of priests to the world;
- Those who obey the Torah will be blessed;
- Anyone who lives with the Jews is expected to obey the Torah (same law for all);
- Anyone who belongs to Messiah Yeshua is an adopted child of Abraham.
There you have it! Anyone who professes to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah is grafted into the nation of Israel and an adopted son or daughter of Abraham. As such, God has stated that that person is to be required to obey the law the same as a native-born Jew, and is also a priest to the world, who is expected by God to live and teach others to live in accordance with the instructions God gave to us through Moses, which are in the Torah.
And when that person, now an adopted child of Abraham and a priest to the world, obeys God and teaches others to do so, they will all receive blessings and be a blessing to the world.
However, as the later part of Deuteronomy 28 states, if that person rejects God’s instructions they will be cut off from their people and cursed.
If you profess to accept Yeshua as your Messiah, then you are, as stated in the Bible, an adopted child of Abraham and a priest to the world, required by God to live in accordance with his instructions in the Torah and to teach others to do so.
If you reject the Torah then you have rejected God, and by doing so you will be cut off from your people, which translates to having thrown away the gift of salvation you received when you said you accepted Yeshua.
I am not making this stuff up-it is all here in the Bible! So please!- reconsider whatever lies you may have been told that absolve you from obeying the Torah. They are from people who most likely didn’t know they were leading you down the path of destruction; these traditional Christian teachings are the blind leading the blind and have been passed down, generation to generation, for millennia.
Now you have good sound biblical reasons to question them.
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Something Else Jews and Christians Have In Common
I have written about Jews and Christians many times, almost always, but only now and then specifying things that we have in common. I usually spend most of my time pointing out all the things we do NOT have in common, and why it shouldn’t be that way.
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But today I want to point out something we have in common, something other than the obvious things, such as we both believe in God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
We both, for the most part, believe in the existence of Yeshua (Jesus), although where Christianity has accepted him as the Messiah God promised to send, mainstream Judaism has rejected him as such.
Now, here is the one thing that both Jews and Christians have in common, which is not a good thing:
Both Jews and Christians say that if you want to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, you can’t be Jewish anymore.
Now isn’t that amazing? And totally disappointing.
You see, most Christians have been taught that following the instructions in the Torah, which are often referred to as the Mosaic law, is something that Jews are required to do because they are still subject to the Torah, and that is because they have rejected Jesus. But Christians, because they accept Jesus, are under Grace and not under the law, which is what Paul said in his letter to the Romans .
What Paul was talking about was the teaching of the Pharisees, which was a performance-based salvation; in other words, the Jews were being taught that they had to perform righteously in order to be “saved.” Paul constantly reminded them that it isn’t performance, but faith which allows us to be seen as righteous, preaching a faith-based salvation.
But here’s the kicker: faith doesn’t mean disobedience. Paul often states this, saying that Grace trumps sin, but it isn’t a license to sin. And James also states that faith without works is dead, meaning faith encourages and motivates us to obey.
So, nu? Obey what? There are no commandments issued by God anywhere in the New Covenant writings. All of God’s instructions are in the Torah.
Yeshua said if we love him we will obey his commandments, so what are they? In truth, Yeshua gave no commandments, other than to love one another, because that is how people will know we are his talmudim (John 13:34); but, in reality, that wasn’t new: Yeshua was rephrasing Leviticus 19:18, which says love your neighbor as yourself.
So what Christianity has taught is lawlessness. Shaul (Paul) teaches in his letter to the Romans that the Torah created sin by identifying what is right and what is wrong. So, if you don’t have to obey the Torah, then you are by definition, sinning. And when we add to this another Christian teaching called “Once Saved, Always Saved”, not only are you sinning but you don’t even have to repent!
What about the Jewish side of this? Do they agree that when a Jew accepts Jesus they are free from obedience to the Torah? Not really: what Jews will tell you is that any Jew who accepts Yeshua as their Messiah is now a Christian! According to mainstream Judaism, no Jew who believes Yeshua is the Messiah is Jewish anymore. It doesn’t matter if they obey the Torah, go to shul on Shabbat, observe the Moedim of God, or do any other “Jewish” thing: as far as Jews are concerned, if you believe in Jesus you aren’t a Jew anymore.
You can be born Jewish and convert to any other non-Christian religion, and you will still be considered a Jew, just a Jew who is a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Hindu, but if you accept Jesus you aren’t a Jew.
How meshuggah is that?
The sad part of this, which is not just sad but destroys people’s chances of truly being saved, is that both sides are absolutely, 1000% WRONG!
Anyone who believes that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah God promised to send is, by definition, grafted into the Chosen people of God (Romans 11), who are, have been, and always will be…the Jews. No Christian who says he or she believes in Jesus is absolved of obedience to God, for God, himself, has said over and over throughout the Bible that anyone who joins with the Jewish people is to receive the same treatment under the law as the native-born. That means to be protected by it, as well as obligated to obey it.
As for the Jews who accept Yeshua, they are just as obligated to obey God now as they ever were, because accepting Yeshua as their Messiah completes them as a Jewish person: not only do they have God, and his Torah, but the Messiah, as well.
Yeshua said in Matthew 5:17 that he did not come to change the law and that nothing in the Torah will change until all things have come to pass. That means A-L-L things: Yeshua’s return, the Tribulation, the new heaven and earth, the temple lowered from heaven, the dead in Messiah risen, Satan and his demons in the lake of fire, etc., etc., etc.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t see any of these things here now.
Both sides agree believing in Yeshua as the Messiah means you can’t be a Jew anymore, and, according to what God, Yeshua, and even that little Jewish Pharisee tent-maker from Tarsus all say, both sides couldn’t be more wrong.
In fact, the most Jewish thing any Jew can do is to accept Yeshua as their Messiah, and Christians shouldn’t do as the “Church” teaches, but as Yeshua actually did, which was to live a Torah-observant life, motivated to obey Torah by his faith in, and love for, the Lord God.
It is clear from the Bible that to obey God’s instructions (which are in the Torah) is to accept him, and to refuse to do as God says is to reject him- there is no middle ground here. In the Gospels, Yeshua said he does and says only what God tells him to do and say, so Yeshua obeyed God by living in perfect accordance with the Torah; otherwise, he would not have been an acceptable sacrifice, So, nu! To live as Yeshua lived, to follow in his footsteps, to live up to the WWJD on those bracelets people wear, is to obey God’s instructions in the Torah.
And we don’t obey Torah because we want to attain salvation by works, but because of our faithful loving obedience to our father in heaven, who only wants what is best for us. Obedience to the Torah is not how we are saved, but faith in God and Yeshua is meaningful and real only if you do as they say.
Not as Paul says, or as your Priest says, or as your Minister says, or as your Rabbi quoting from the Talmud says, but as God says.
Jews and Christians have to realize that accepting Yeshua as your Messiah doesn’t mean you are free from Torah, or that you are not Jewish, but that you are grafted onto the Tree of Life that God provided, and that tree’s roots are the Torah.
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