10.14.24 ~ Big Deal, Little Deal
Good morning!
As you can tell, I'm still working on figuring out my schedule...it will balance out soon :-)For now, I'm just a couple of days away from celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles in Destin, Florida, and thankfully, they haven't been hit with the hurricanes! Praise Yahweh!
With the traditional date of Sukkot just a couple days away it begs us to ask the question, ‘why would anyone leave their house to sleep in a temporary shelter (Lev. 23:39-43)?
Before we get to the answer, let's play a game called ‘Big-deal, Little-deal’. Here's the way the game works: We're going to take each of the three main festivals of the Torah – Passover/Pesach, Pentecost/Shavuot and Tabernacles/Sukkot – and we are going to ask ourselves: What event does this holiday commemorate – and… is the event a "big deal" or a "little deal"?
The game should be very easy for most of you. We'll start with Pesach/Passover. What event does it commemorate? Well, that's easy enough: It celebrates our Exodus from slavery; the night we left Egypt (Ex. 12; 1 Cor. 9:24-10:12). Big deal? Little deal? On a scale of 1-10, I'd say it's a 12. There's plagues. Blood, darkness, hail, fire, the Sea splits in this climactic moment of triumph. Death to the bad guys; salvation to the good guys. This is a very big deal. Plus: it's our Independence Day, the very beginning of our nation Israel and the prototype of our salvation.
Okay, what about Shavuot/Pentecost? How big a deal is the event commemorated by Shavuot? On a scale from 1-10 it's like… an 11! Shavuot celebrates the moment an entire nation rendezvoused with God (Ex. 19-24). The Almighty literally descended into our world, on the top of a mountain, to give us a document that would define our destiny, that would shape the course of world civilization. Without that event, what would we be? We would be no more than a nomadic tribe in the wilderness. We would be missing a mission. We would be missing a legacy. That's a really big deal.
Alright, so, now let's go to Sukkot. So… what does this holiday commemorate?
Well...we sleep in booths/sukkahs (Lev. 23:43).
Okay, we sleep in booths, because we all slept in booths in the desert. So now let's play big deal, little deal. On a scale from 1-10, everyone, how big a deal is that booth thing? I'm pretty sure that's like, 2.5. I mean, it's all very nice to sleep in booths. Nothing against it, certainly. But do we have to have a whole 8-day holiday commemorating it; one that determines whether nations will get rain during the Messianic era (Zech. 14:16-19)?
It's got to be a big deal, but why? Let's look at the Scripture again.
Commercial: Shabbat morning zoom call: If God said, 'I'll never leave you or forsake you', why did He (Deut. 32,33).
So that… your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt (Lev. 23:43).
The text emphasizes 'when'. Ahh, it's not about 40 years in booths/Sukkah but where they stopped when they left Egypt. Where did they travel to when they were leaving Rameses, Egypt? They traveled to a place called Sukkot. Enquiring minds are scratching their heads on this big deal. Kind of bizarre, that we would celebrate the first night we left Egypt? Why, you might ask, should we celebrate that? Enquiring minds want to know!
Way back in Genesis, we encountered a place named Sukkot when Jacob left Laban's house, exiting his own personal slavery in his father in law's domain, one of the first places he came to was a place called Sukkot. And the Torah tells us why it was called that: Jacob built little huts there for his cattle there, huts called Sukkot, and, the Torah tells us, 'that's why he called the name of the place Sukkot. (Gen. 33:17)'.
That night, in those huts/sukkah; it actually was a momentous big deal turning point. But Why? If we go back into the Torah's description of that first night. You'll find a curious thing. Right after we hear about that first night in Sukkot, the Torah tells us another apparently trivial point. It takes a step back to give us what looks like an accounting of the total years we spent in slavery: ‘Now the time that the children of Israel settled down in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years (Ex. 12:40).
The text appears to be establishing a contrast for the reader. For four hundred and thirty years, the people had been "settled down" in a land that wasn't theirs. During that time, they had a real roof over their heads. They might have been guests in Egypt, they might even have been slaves but they knew that when they went home at night, they had a reliable shelter, a real home, in which to sleep. They knew where their next meal was coming from.
In an instant, all that changed. It changed that very first night of freedom, when they found themselves sleeping in those cattle pens along with the sheep and the cows. It changed when, after four hundred and thirty years of being 'settled' in Egypt, they were 'settled' by God into these little cattle pens in the desert. It changed... in Sukkot. Stop and think for a minute: What must that night have been like?
Here they were, the first night away from Egypt. It was the first night they experienced without a master's lash at their backs. That night, they breathed in the heady air of freedom. For the very first time in generations, they could come and go as they pleased. They could make choices. On the one hand, it was like living a dream. But the dream was also full of terror. They were in the desert. And they had nowhere real to sleep. No home to call their own. They were sleeping with their cattle, right next to Bessie the cow and Spotty the sheep. You could almost imagine what might have been going through their minds. This is ridiculous. What am I doing here?
To add to the ridiculousness of the situation, the Torah tells us one more thing about that night. It tells us what they ate that night in Sukkot. Let's read a little bit more from these verses: ‘And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual (Ex. 12:39).
Wait a minute. They made Unleavened bread/Matzah that first night? You're startled, you say to yourself: One second, Matzah-making isn't a Sukkot activity; it's a Pesach activity. On Pesach/Passover, we eat unleavened bread to remember how we rushed out of Egypt. Have we pieced together all these clues about that first night in the desert only to arrive … on a different holiday?
Something really interesting is beginning to emerge, it seems to me. There are two holidays in the Torah, Pesach and Sukkot, that somehow both seem to be commemorating the same event: The very first night that Israel spent alone in the desert. The only difference between the holidays seems to be one of perspective: One holiday, Pesach, commemorates that first night from the perspective of food; we remember what we ate that night. The other holiday, Sukkot, commemorates the night in terms of where we slept.
The two basic needs of life are, of course, food and shelter. We had them both in abundance in Egypt. Bread for the eating, and a real roof over our heads. We had those necessities, but we were missing freedom. Suddenly, in an instant, everything changed. God caused Ten Plagues to descend upon our tormentors and suddenly, our masters were powerless to keep us tethered to them anymore. We could go free. The question is: Would we leave?
We made a choice the moment we left, a crazy choice if you stop to think about it. We made a choice to embrace freedom, to accept God's invitation to become His nation and travel to a land He promised us, a land we had never seen; all without any real preparation. There was no logistical infrastructure for that journey. Imagine tasking a modern day Army Corp of engineers with the duty to lay the infrastructure for a walk through the desert that would last forty years; approximately 2.3 million people would be taking the journey. The project would cost billions of dollars. You'd have to set up roads, plumbing, QT's, Hyvee, Meijers & Quigly pigly Food stores, malls for clothing and a few more 7-11's for good measure. But none of that would be in place for the Israelites' journey. It was a choice thrust on them in an instant. This is your chance: Are you ready to go?
The choice to leave can't be described as anything other than a supreme act of faith. We quite literally placed ourselves in the embrace of the Divine, and said, in effect, 'you're inviting us God, and we're going. Our most basic needs they are all now in your hands.' The text that tells us of the journey to Sukkot emphasizes the tentative nature of the journey by telling us they hadn't even packed provisions for the journey. So there they were that first night, sleeping under the stars, in the ridiculous cattle pens they set up for these animals; there they were, eating their last morsel of half-baked bread realizing, with stunning clarity, that there was no more where that came from. There they were, for the first time, utterly and totally in God's embrace.
Are you ready to commit to His embrace?
Chag Sameach!
Shalom
Commercial: Shabbat morning zoom call: If God said, 'I'll never leave you or forsake you', why did He (Deut. 32,33).
So that… your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt (Lev. 23:43).
The text emphasizes 'when'. Ahh, it's not about 40 years in booths/Sukkah but where they stopped when they left Egypt. Where did they travel to when they were leaving Rameses, Egypt? They traveled to a place called Sukkot. Enquiring minds are scratching their heads on this big deal. Kind of bizarre, that we would celebrate the first night we left Egypt? Why, you might ask, should we celebrate that? Enquiring minds want to know!
Way back in Genesis, we encountered a place named Sukkot when Jacob left Laban's house, exiting his own personal slavery in his father in law's domain, one of the first places he came to was a place called Sukkot. And the Torah tells us why it was called that: Jacob built little huts there for his cattle there, huts called Sukkot, and, the Torah tells us, 'that's why he called the name of the place Sukkot. (Gen. 33:17)'.
That night, in those huts/sukkah; it actually was a momentous big deal turning point. But Why? If we go back into the Torah's description of that first night. You'll find a curious thing. Right after we hear about that first night in Sukkot, the Torah tells us another apparently trivial point. It takes a step back to give us what looks like an accounting of the total years we spent in slavery: ‘Now the time that the children of Israel settled down in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years (Ex. 12:40).
The text appears to be establishing a contrast for the reader. For four hundred and thirty years, the people had been "settled down" in a land that wasn't theirs. During that time, they had a real roof over their heads. They might have been guests in Egypt, they might even have been slaves but they knew that when they went home at night, they had a reliable shelter, a real home, in which to sleep. They knew where their next meal was coming from.
In an instant, all that changed. It changed that very first night of freedom, when they found themselves sleeping in those cattle pens along with the sheep and the cows. It changed when, after four hundred and thirty years of being 'settled' in Egypt, they were 'settled' by God into these little cattle pens in the desert. It changed... in Sukkot. Stop and think for a minute: What must that night have been like?
Here they were, the first night away from Egypt. It was the first night they experienced without a master's lash at their backs. That night, they breathed in the heady air of freedom. For the very first time in generations, they could come and go as they pleased. They could make choices. On the one hand, it was like living a dream. But the dream was also full of terror. They were in the desert. And they had nowhere real to sleep. No home to call their own. They were sleeping with their cattle, right next to Bessie the cow and Spotty the sheep. You could almost imagine what might have been going through their minds. This is ridiculous. What am I doing here?
To add to the ridiculousness of the situation, the Torah tells us one more thing about that night. It tells us what they ate that night in Sukkot. Let's read a little bit more from these verses: ‘And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual (Ex. 12:39).
Wait a minute. They made Unleavened bread/Matzah that first night? You're startled, you say to yourself: One second, Matzah-making isn't a Sukkot activity; it's a Pesach activity. On Pesach/Passover, we eat unleavened bread to remember how we rushed out of Egypt. Have we pieced together all these clues about that first night in the desert only to arrive … on a different holiday?
Something really interesting is beginning to emerge, it seems to me. There are two holidays in the Torah, Pesach and Sukkot, that somehow both seem to be commemorating the same event: The very first night that Israel spent alone in the desert. The only difference between the holidays seems to be one of perspective: One holiday, Pesach, commemorates that first night from the perspective of food; we remember what we ate that night. The other holiday, Sukkot, commemorates the night in terms of where we slept.
The two basic needs of life are, of course, food and shelter. We had them both in abundance in Egypt. Bread for the eating, and a real roof over our heads. We had those necessities, but we were missing freedom. Suddenly, in an instant, everything changed. God caused Ten Plagues to descend upon our tormentors and suddenly, our masters were powerless to keep us tethered to them anymore. We could go free. The question is: Would we leave?
We made a choice the moment we left, a crazy choice if you stop to think about it. We made a choice to embrace freedom, to accept God's invitation to become His nation and travel to a land He promised us, a land we had never seen; all without any real preparation. There was no logistical infrastructure for that journey. Imagine tasking a modern day Army Corp of engineers with the duty to lay the infrastructure for a walk through the desert that would last forty years; approximately 2.3 million people would be taking the journey. The project would cost billions of dollars. You'd have to set up roads, plumbing, QT's, Hyvee, Meijers & Quigly pigly Food stores, malls for clothing and a few more 7-11's for good measure. But none of that would be in place for the Israelites' journey. It was a choice thrust on them in an instant. This is your chance: Are you ready to go?
The choice to leave can't be described as anything other than a supreme act of faith. We quite literally placed ourselves in the embrace of the Divine, and said, in effect, 'you're inviting us God, and we're going. Our most basic needs they are all now in your hands.' The text that tells us of the journey to Sukkot emphasizes the tentative nature of the journey by telling us they hadn't even packed provisions for the journey. So there they were that first night, sleeping under the stars, in the ridiculous cattle pens they set up for these animals; there they were, eating their last morsel of half-baked bread realizing, with stunning clarity, that there was no more where that came from. There they were, for the first time, utterly and totally in God's embrace.
Are you ready to commit to His embrace?
Chag Sameach!
Shalom
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