Light In Torah

  Before we get into our study, it is that time of the year again when I go through my email list and my "prayer text list" to simplify my life. If you would like to stay on the daily prayer-text list, please RSVP, and I will keep praying for you and your needs. If you stop receiving studies, it is because I did not hear from you. Happy 37th day of counting the Omer. We are getting closer to Pentecost. Over the past several weeks, I have been trying to influence you toward a larger perspective on the blood while eliminating other ideas that do not hold water in Scripture. Speaking of water, let us spend this week talking about it. I hope by now I have clearly established what the sacrificial system was—and was not. We spent a lot of time on this. The system was designed to do something very specific; it was never designed to do everything. Here is a brief recap: Last week, we said that the purification offerings, the blood rites, and the annual deep cleaning associated with Y...

Happy 36th day of counting the Omer! It is the sixth week and the first day. Only fourteen more to go until we celebrate Pentecost. Where will you be? What makes the Shavuot/Pentecost weekend so special? Bonding with people who are pursuing the same outcome. Just as super glue holds things together, bonding is the ultimate emotional connection. Every soul-quality we have been working on over the past five weeks has been based on our individual feelings, but bonding is a reciprocating activity—the fusing of two! It is more than a feeling; it is an attachment of devotion—much more than a token commitment. It develops an everlasting union that lives on forever through the perpetual fruit it bears. Bonding is the foundation of life. It is the emotional spine of the human psyche. Every person needs bonding to flourish and grow: the bonding between mother and child, between husband and wife, between brothers and sisters, between close friends. It is the strong force that allows people to hav...

Shabbat Shalom and happy 35th day of counting the Omer! Time is moving forward quickly, and Shavuot will be here before you know it. There is a strange omission in this week's Torah portion,  Behar  and  Bechukotai , when an individual sells himself because he has hit hard times financially. The text identifies many individuals who are able to bail him out of his challenging situation. Ironically, the "father" of the individual is left out of the mentioned "redeemers" (Lev. 25:47–49). How strange is that? To me, that is where I would go first :-) At first blush, that omission may not make a whole lot of difference to our "hooked on phonics" abilities, but for the Sherlock Holmes investigative reader, that omission will jump off the page. Why? Bottom line: this person would never be in this position if his father had had a good bonding ( yesod ) relationship with his son through the formative years. Yeppers. I know that sounds strange, but the foundatio...

  Do you remember my story of picking up dog doo in the public park? When an Israelite—which is who you are if you have been grafted into the olive tree (Rom. 11)—chooses to disregard the responsibility (that is, to not clean up after their dog in our analogy) or fails to bring the appropriate offering, they must clean up the contamination they introduced, and that is something different. What began as a non-ritual impurity now becomes a willful violation of covenant obligation. In Hebrew, this deliberate rebellion is   pesha ; it means revolt and defiance. It is a breach of trust with God. It is a severe category of sin in the Bible. It describes someone who knows what God requires and instead deliberately chooses to refuse—willful rebellion. These rebellions, along with other grave moral impurities (idolatry, sexual sin, bloodshed), are the things that penetrate all the way into the most sacred space—the Holy of Holies—and take up residence there. There is another Hebrew wor...

Last week we finished perusing the Torah portion   Emor , which included the instructions regarding God's prophetic calendar. These instructions deal with experiencing the holiness of time and space in the 21st century (Lev. 23). From the beginning, God has sanctified time by setting aside a period for us to connect with Him, who is timeless. We see this at the end of the creation story when He makes the Sabbath (Gen. 2:1–3), and we find it as the first command given to His people before they exit Egypt (Ex. 12). Time is the most valuable commodity we have. Once it is used up, it is gone forever. You cannot relive any exact moment in the past. Hence, we must make the most of every opportunity within our grasp (Ps. 39:5). Redeeming the time is a concept familiar to most, but there is much more to time than just a tick on a clock (Eph. 5:16). There is a duality to it that often gets overlooked. As we examine Scripture, the day seems to have two beginnings: one in the morning, when H...

In our last study, I began to introduce a very expanded view of blood: cleansing the sacred space. The accumulated effect of humanity's limitations—we could say the limited life of our death-related impurities—presses against those holy objects. The sacrifice they make after being cleansed purges that accumulated effect and clears God's side of the equation. What does the person get out of the deal? Who is it for? What is the deal? Inquiring minds want to know :-) Namely, they are not considered fully restored until the relationship with God in sacred space has been restored. They are out of fellowship. They are out of the community. After the offering, atonement is made. Atonement allows them to re-enter sacred space, restoring their relationship and purity. They are now in a position to hear—welcome back. That is why in Leviticus 14, when the  chatat  is brought, it is followed by a burnt offering. Remember what I told you about the burnt offering in the  Tamid  of...

Over the past four weeks of counting the Omer (welcome, Day 30), we have expanded the biblical definition of grace ( chen ), recognized that God takes pride in His obedient children, understood that salvation is more than asking "Jesus" into your heart, and seen that the blood is definitely a broader topic than the majority of people think. On this 30th day of counting the Omer, I want to state that Yom Kippur has a limit. The  chatat  (sin offering) has a limit. If Yom Kippur (Day of Coverings) could handle everything—if the blood of goats could handle the deep clean, if that could take care of everything, absorb all this rebellion, and keep functioning forever—then we must ask one simple question: "Why did Israel go into exile?" Why would they be eradicated from the land? Why would they be vomited out of the land? If there is a total fix, where is it? This material is going to be very heavy, and the danger of heavy material is easily getting lost along the way. Yo...

With Pentecost—the establishment of the church ( kahal / ekklesia ) (Ex. 19–24) and the renewing of the church (Acts 2)—just a few weeks away, the themes of proximity, intimacy, and renewal come to the foreground. Hence, our studies on Passover, blood, and beyond :-) Today is the 29th day—the 5th week and 1st day—of counting the Omer. And this morning, I want to encourage you to consider marriage to yourself, a paradox that constitutes the very essence of life. Huh? Exactly! Our marriage to our spouse is essentially our  second  marriage. Double huh? All of us experience a first marriage at the moment of birth, when our souls "marry" our bodies and they "move in" together for life. The soul and the body are, at the beginning of their marriage, two opposites: one is physical and focused on physical survival (my body); the other is infinite consciousness, a wave of Divine infinity and oneness, formed by the breath of God (Gen. 2:7). One (at least initially) defines bl...

As we move through the holiness section of Leviticus, the Lord knows, through His righteous commandments, the good ( tov ) we are capable of bringing forth in the world. We have learned that He designed us to serve as His earthly vessels of life ( chayah ), His carriers of glory and worship ( kavod ), His stewards of holiness ( kedushah ), His models of wisdom ( chochmah ), and His vessels of atonement ( kippurim ). Through the first 24 chapters, He has shown us enough of this vision as needed to inspire us to become and behave as set-apart ones ( kedoshim )—and to do it in every room of the house, every booth of the marketplace, and in every break room, lunchroom, conference room, athletic field, school setting, or workstation of our workplace. He wants every aspect of our lives to radiate holiness. Hence, why every Orthodox Jewish family starts training their three- to five-year-old children in the book of holiness—Leviticus ( Vayikra ). He therefore wants to bring holiness into, and...

Blood at the covenant level inaugurates powerful bonds between God and people. Blood at Aaron's ordination transforms one from a common status to a position of holiness. The blood of   tzara'at   (leprosy) purifies from the realm of death to life, reinstating the one separated from the camp (made holy in a negative sense) into the community of common, living, set-apart people. No sin, no substitution. None of them involve punishment. Add to that reality that the blood from a sin offering is  never  used on people—never. These rituals cannot have anything to do with substituting for someone else's death or deserved penalty. And yet, blood remains the most powerful substance in the sacrificial system. When blood touches people, it changes their status, grants them access, and restores relationships.  Blood equals access.  That is the pattern! Is that radically different from the story many people hold regarding Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA)? That limi...

The right ear, right thumb, and right big toe—what an odd place to apply blood (Ex. 29:20; Lev. 14:14, 17, 25, 28)! Do you remember the inauguration of the priesthood (Ex. 29)? Blood was dabbed on Aaron's right ear, his right thumb, and his right big toe—some on the altar. Then blood from the altar was sprinkled on Aaron and his garments, and on his sons and their garments. What do we know about that blood? What we do know is that it has nothing to do with sin. It is not a sin sacrifice. It is not an atoning sacrifice. But it  is  an ordination sacrifice. And what it accomplishes is a big, metaphysical transition. What is a metaphysical transition? Before this moment in time, Aaron was common. Now, within a short ceremony, he is holy. Aaron was an ordinary man. After this blood ritual, he is an ordained priest. He can now enter sacred space. He can stand before God in the Tabernacle. Nothing about this aspect of blood has anything to do with sin, but it has changed him into so...