Author: Steven R. Bruck
Why Read The Torah?
Oops! Last week when I posted Parashah Shemini, I was a week too early. I missed the fact that on the Shabbat after Pesach (Passover) we read a different portion of the Torah, specifically for that Shabbat. So, that means I am a week ahead, and as such, I thought we could use this week to review the reason why reading the Torah portion (called a Parashah, the plural is Parashot) is so important, especially if you want to be able to understand what is in the New Covenant writings.
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The Torah is the first five books of the Bible (most of you already know that) and they contain every, single instruction for how to worship God and how to treat each other that God wants us to know. In truth, it is really the only part of the Bible that is made up of the exact words God gave to us, with Moses taking dictation. Every single Torah is exactly the same as every other Torah- when the Scribes who are specially trained to write the Torah (called Sopherim) finish copying one Torah to another, they count every single letter to make sure there is nothing missing or added.
Yeshua taught from the Torah. That was the only scripture that existed. Of course, there were many traditional teachings, which became the Mishna and the Gomorrah (together they make up the Talmud.) But as for the written word of God, when Yeshua was teaching, he was teaching from the only scripture there was, and that was the Torah. And as far as Yeshua being the spotless lamb of God, i.e. a sinless person, he was sinless because he did everything that God instructed us all to do, which (again) is found in the Torah.
My point is that to understand what Yeshua taught, we need to first know what is in the Torah. Shaul (Paul) also taught only from the Torah; in fact, being a Pharisee trained by one of the greatest Rabbis in Jewish history, Gamaliel, he was a Torah expert.
The New Covenant writings have absolutely nothing in them that is “new.” I know, I know…you are going to quote from Ecclesiastes and tell me there is nothing new under the sun, and (of course) I will agree with you, which also proves my point about the New Covenant. Yeshua taught from the Torah, the Disciples of Yeshua taught what they learned from Yeshua, which was from the Torah, and Shaul taught what he knew from the Torah.
Let’s take a break for a minute and go over something important to know. In the letters from Shaul to the congregations of (almost exclusively) Gentile Believers he formed, he gave them a lot of leeway in how strictly they followed the Torah because they needed that. He was against requiring Gentiles to make a complete and immediate conversion to Judaism because he knew that paradigm shift in lifestyle would be too difficult and he would lose a lot of them. That is the same conclusion the Elders in Jerusalem came to, which you can read about in Acts 15. They gave only 4 immediate requirements, and that was never meant to be the only thing Gentiles had to do, just all they had to do for now. It was assumed (and you can see that plainly in Acts 15:21) they would eventually learn all the commandments in the Torah. This discussion, however, is for another time.
If you wanted to build a house, you wouldn’t start with the roof or the second floor, would you? In fact, you wouldn’t even start with the main floor until you had laid the foundation. The Torah is the foundation for the Tanakh, which is what many consider to be the “Jewish Bible”. The books that come after Deuteronomy are either of historical nature (such as Joshua, Kings 1 and 2, Chronicles 1 and 2, Ruth, Esther, etc.) or they are prophetic books. But they all have one thing in common, and that is that they show us how well, or more often how poorly, the Chosen people lived within the covenant they had made with God. They also show how God always kept his side of the covenant, even when we kept breaking our side of it. And how willing God was, and still is, to forgive us when we repent.
The New Covenant writings start with the Gospels, which are the narrative of all the messianic prophecies we read throughout the Tanakh coming to fruition in Messiah Yeshua. His teachings, which we read in the Gospels, are all from the Torah, but what was different was not what he taught about the commandments, but what he taught about how we are to follow the commandments.
The Pharisees were teaching performance-based salvation, i.e. what we call in Judaism the P’shat, the plain language of the Torah. For example, when they taught do not murder, they meant to not kill someone on purpose, and that was all. Yeshua taught the Remes, the deeper, spiritual meaning of the law, so he said we know not to murder, but if we hate in our heart, that is murder.
If you aren’t familiar with the terms P’shat or Remes, look up the Jewish form of biblical exegesis called PaRDeS.
In order to understand what Yeshua taught, we need to know what the Pharisees taught so we can see the difference. Only reading the New Covenant is like reading the second book of a two-book story, without ever having read the first book. You might get some of the story-line, and may understand a lot of what is happening, but without knowing the background you will never really understand the characters or the way things got to where you “came in” to the narrative.
This is why it is important for anyone and everyone who professes to want to follow Yeshua to know what he knew- the Torah. After all, didn’t John say the Word of God became flesh and walked among us? He was talking about Yeshua, and the only Word of God (as we learned earlier) that existed then was the Torah, so Yeshua is the living Torah. That is why he could never preach anything against the Torah, because if he did then he would be a house divided against itself, and we all know what he said about that.
If you are a Believer and have not read the Torah, then you are cheating yourself out of knowing your Messiah. You cannot understand the depth of what Yeshua taught or understand anything in the letters Paul wrote if you do not know the Torah and, in fact, you really need to know the entire Tanakh. That was what they taught from, and that is where we learn about God, the Messiah and God’s plan for mankind.
It comes down to this: if you don’t know the Torah, you can’t really know Yeshua.
Thank you for being here; please subscribe and share these messages with others. I always welcome your comments, and next Friday we will be back on schedule with the Parashah readings.
Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!
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Half Full or Half Empty?
Are you familiar with that psychology question to test whether someone is an Optimist or a Pessimist? You know, it’s the one where you tell someone a glass has water at the halfway mark and would they say it is half empty or half full?
When I am asked that question, my answer is: “It depends on what you are doing with the glass.”
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You see, if I am filling the glass in order to drink the water, then I haven’t completed what I started to do so, by design, the glass is half full. If, on the other hand, the glass had been full and I was drinking it all up, I haven’t finished drinking it all so the glass is half empty.
My answer isn’t based on the temporary condition of the glass but on the intention of what the glass should become. If I am filling it, my intention for the glass is to be filled, and if drinking it, the glass is to become empty.
This same outlook holds true for our spiritual nature.
Instead of water in a glass, if we are talking about me and God’s spirit, I intend to become more filled with the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit. Consequently, in order to be more filled with the Spirit, I must be emptied, that is, emptied of my worldly desires so that there is room for the Spirit. The more of myself I empty, the more of God’s spirit I can be filled with.
However, for those who are not intending to be filled with the spirit, they are being filled with themselves and the things of this world, and what they are being emptied of is hope, trust, and being able to look forward to an eternity of joy.
As Believers who trust in God to keep his promises, we must always be in the process of becoming filled, meaning holier, and looking forward to the future. I don’t think someone who is pessimistic is truly faithful. If I am faithful can I be cynical? Yes. Can I be realistic? Hopefully. Can I be pessimistic? NEVER!
We have the Almighty God, the creator of the universe to watch over us, and we have his son, the Messiah, to intercede for us, and we have the Holy Spirit to guide us. How can anyone not be secure about their future, no matter what is happening, with all that help?
Faith creates optimism: you can’t be faithful and not look forward to the future. For those who believe they are faithful but still view things pessimistically, this may be a hard word for you, and if it is then I say, GOOD! C’mon! Get with the program, trust in God and stop trusting in anything or anyone else.
When you trust in yourself or other humans you can’t be anything but pessimistic because humans are sinful and selfish. In my experience, people who do not believe in God are almost exclusively pessimists. And no wonder; if there is no supernatural entity that loves you, cares for you and is planning only the best for you, how can you be hopeful?
Despite my cynical nature, I am in fact an optimist. It’s in my genes: my blood type is B-Positive.
Seriously, I am optimistic because I trust in God and therefore can look forward to the future, even the bad things I am sure will have to happen. After all, we may not be spiritually part of the world, but we are physically in it, and there is no way you can walk through a cow field and not end up stepping in something, no matter how careful you are.
I am a glass that is always in the process of being filled and I am working hard to become fuller every day.
What condition is your glass in?
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Why Must the Righteous Also Die?
I have often wondered why the innocent have to suffer for the guilty.
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For instance, in the Northern Kingdom of Shomron, God told Elijah that despite Elijah thinking he was the only righteous man left, there were still 7,000 who hadn’t bowed the knee to Ba’al (1 Kings 19:18.) Yet, all the people in the Northern Kingdom were attacked, many slaughtered, and the rest dispersed throughout the known world.
We also read how later, in the Southern Kingdom of Judea, the same thing eventually happened to them, except they weren’t dispersed but taken into slavery, while some of the people remained in the land. And Isaiah prophecized that the young men who were a prince or of nobility were taken into slavery, made into eunuchs and forced to serve the king of Babylon (2 Kings 20:16-18), one of them (most likely) being the prophet Daniel.
I know that we can’t always understand why God does what he does, and he even told us (through Moses) that the secret things belong to him.
In Judaism we believe that the laws God gave fall into one of three categories:
Mitzvot– laws that are self-explanatory;
Mishpatim– laws that are logical and expected to exist in any society; and
Chukkim– laws that seem arbitrary and are without explanation, and no one knows why they exist.
So, I figure the reason the righteous must die is like a Chukkim law, which has a reason but God only knows why they exist. And just because we can’t understand the “why” for them, we still have to accept that God knows what he is doing and we don’t always have the need to know.
I have come to the conclusion that maybe the righteous have to die with the unrighteous because when God judges, we all will be judged, together. If that is correct, then it makes sense that everyone dies when God is ready to judge.
Yeshua gave a drash regarding the tares and the wheat (Matthew 13:24) and it ends with both the wheat (righteous) and the tares (unrighteous) being harvested together, then separated. If this is God’s plan, then the righteous have to die with the unrighteous.
I think the bottom line is that the answer to why the righteous have to die with the unrighteous is not really important because of the answer to the question: “Why are we here?” My answer to that is we are here for as long as we are here for one purpose only, which is to decide where we will spend eternity. What we do in this life determines where we spend eternity, so this current existence, which is mortal and limited, should be less important to us than our eternal existence.
As such, when we die isn’t that important, or even if we die, or who we die with so long as when it happens we are set to go to the right place.
Here is what the angel told Daniel:
Daniel 12:13: But as for you, go your way to the end; then you will enter into rest and rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age.”
There are a number of places in the Bible where we read about the dying of the righteous, and I believe that this excerpt from the Psalms says it all:
Psalm 49:15:
But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, For He will receive me.
That is what it really comes down to, doesn’t it? It doesn’t matter when we die, so long as we are in a state of righteousness when we die we will eventually be in God’s presence for all eternity.
And how do we become righteous? By accepting Yeshua as our Messiah so that we can, by reason of his sacrifice, find atonement for our sins and to be repentant, do T’shuvah (turn from sin) and live our lives trying to be as obedient to the instructions God gave us as we can be.
As for me, I live my life always repenting and seeking forgiveness for when I sin, asking for strength to be less sinful, and trying my darndest to live my life as a living testament to God.
So don’t be sad when the good die and the evil survive, because the righteous will be taken into the bosom of Adonai and the unrepentant evil, although they may be having a really good time now, will have only eternal suffering and torment when their life comes to an end.
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Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
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Parashah Shemini 2020 (Eighth day) Leviticus 9 – 11
We have events happening in each chapter of today’s reading that holds a vital lesson for everyone.
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First, in Chapter 9 we are told what to do when preparing to come into the presence of the Lord.
Chapter 10 tells of the death of Aaron’s two oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, which came about as punishment for their offering fire to the Lord in a manner that was not only wrong but demonstrated their disrespect for him and the Sanctuary.
And Chapter 11, the Laws of Kashrut (Kosher), is probably the most abused, misunderstood and ignored set of God’s instructions that we find anywhere in the Bible.
There has been so much written on the Kosher laws, by me and others, that I feel anyone who doesn’t understand how Acts 10 and Mark 7 have been misunderstood and incorrectly interpreted by now probably never will.
If you are unsure of what I mean, please take a moment to go to this link: The Truth About Mark 7 and Acts 10
What I want to talk about today is what we read in Chapter 9. The eighth day referenced at the beginning of this reading is the eighth day of the ceremonial anointing of Aaron and his sons as Cohanim. It is on this day that their anointing is completed, and God is going to demonstrate his acceptance by having his Shekinah glory appear for all the people to see. In order to prepare for this most holy of events, there are three offerings that must be presented:
- A sin-offering is made for Aaron, his sons, and the entire congregation;
- A burnt offering is next; finally
- A Thanksgiving or Peace offering is made.
When we know what each of the offerings represents, the reason for them being done in this particular order makes sense.
The sin offering is pretty much self-explanatory, and it is done first for the Cohanim (Priests). Once they have been cleansed, they are then able to approach the Lord and intercede for the people.
After the Cohanim and the congregation have been cleansed of their sins, they offer the wholly burnt sacrifice. This sacrifice is representative of T’Shuvah, turning from a sinful life to a righteous life, and the offering is completely burned up to demonstrate their total commitment to God.
Lastly, the Thanksgiving offering, which is, as the name implies, to give thanks to God for all that he does for us, from healing to protection to the giving of blessings. This is the only offering in which the one offering the animal also partakes in the eating of the sacrifice, to represent communion with God, i.e. being in his presence.
Here is an interesting note: the Passover sacrifice is not for sin, but is a thanksgiving sacrifice. Even though Yeshua died for our sins, his sacrifice on Passover served as both a Yom Kippur sin sacrifice and as a Passover thanksgiving sacrifice, thanking God for his protection from death, i.e. eternal damnation.
So, looking at these three sacrifices as one continuous event, when we wish to be in the presence of the Almighty we need to first ask for forgiveness of our sin so we can be cleansed before the Lord, who cannot condone sin in his presence. Once cleansed of our sin, we then reconfirm ourselves to worshiping and obeying God as he commanded in the Torah. Finally, now that we are clean and back in covenant, we can come into the presence of God to give thanks to him for his protection and blessings.
The bad news is that these offerings cannot be done today because the temple in Jerusalem is no longer there, but the good news is that they have been replaced by the death and resurrection of Yeshua. Not all three though- the sin and thanksgiving sacrifices are replaced with Yeshua’s sacrifice; however, the burnt offering is something we can’t do at the temple, but we can demonstrate in our daily lives. We must live in accordance with the instructions God gave us in order to be in covenant with him; and, not through just a spiritual connection, but through the way we live our lives.
If you want to be in the presence of God you need to do more than just count on Yeshua…you need to live as God wants you to live, as he told us we all should live, and you find those instructions not in the New Covenant, and not in the Apocrypha, and not by watching Dr. Phil or listening to some TV evangelist, but by reading the Torah.
Just like we are reading in this weeks’ parashah.
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Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!
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The Truth About Mark 7 and Acts 10 as They Relate to the Laws of Kashrut (Kosher)
Let’s start with the Christian teaching that the Laws of Kashrut (Kosher laws in Leviticus 11) are not required for Christians. The two stories from the New Covenant most used to justify this are Mark 7:19 and Acts 10-11. In Mark, which we discussed briefly in an earlier lesson, Yeshua was talking with the Pharisees about handwashing prior to eating, and how we will not make our food ceremoniously unclean if we don’t first wash our hands, which was a rabbinic (Talmudic) requirement. In this discussion, Mark states that Yeshua declared all food clean. This verse has been used to show that the kosher laws were overruled and abandoned by Yeshua. Nothing could be further from the truth: Yeshua wasn’t talking about clean and unclean as in what was allowed to be eaten, he was talking about a ceremony, a ritual. As far as declaring all food clean, what was “food” for a First Century Jew is not what the world considers food, today. In India, beef is not considered food; to some African tribes warm blood taken from a cow is considered food; to some other people, monkey brains are a delicacy. And for a Frist Century Jew, the items that are specified in Lev. 11 as forbidden are not “food.” So, all food being clean means that all those things which were allowed to be eaten were the food that was declared clean and, therefore, would not make us ceremoniously unclean if we did not first wash out hands before eating it.
The Book of Acts, Chapters 10 and 11 tells us about a dream (vision) that Kefa (Peter) had while sleeping. The vision had a sheet with all kinds of non-kosher animals on it, and a voice from heaven said to kill and eat. Kefa refused to do so, and each time he refused he heard the voice say, “Do not declare unclean that which I have made clean.” This happened three times. As soon as he awoke, there were three servants of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius at the door of the house, asking for Kefa to come to the Roman soldier’s house. This narrative is used to show that God told Kefa that it is now allowed to eat non-kosher animals. Again, nothing could be further from the truth: first of all, this is a vision and visions are usually interpretive and not to be taken literally. The narrative even tells us that Kefa didn’t understand the meaning of it. At that time, a Roman person’s house was an unclean place to a Jew, and to go into one would make one unclean. That means you would have to wash your body and clothes and would not be allowed into the Temple or even the Courts until after evening. But the true interpretation is that there were three times the sheets came down because there were three servants at the door, and that meant Kefa was to go with them. At the end of the chapter, we are told about the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) coming upon the Roman people in that house who accepted Yeshua as their Messiah. They were the “unclean” thing that God made clean because Romans (as I have said) were considered to be unclean people. And the fact that this had nothing to do with food is confirmed in Chapter 11 when the Elders, upon hearing what happened, didn’t say, “Yahoo!! Now we can go to Bob Evans for eggs and sausages!” but instead praised God that he made it possible for the Gentiles to be saved from their sins, as well as God’s chosen people, the Jews.