Shemot (Exodus)
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Meaning
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Day Three
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Haftara
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B'rit Hadashah
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1 Our Father, we receive Your Words and hide Your commandments with us; 2 we incline our ear unto wisdom, and apply our hearts to understanding; 3 We cry after knowledge and lift up our voices for understanding; 4 we seek it as silver; and search for it as for hidden treasures; 5 We declare that we shall understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. Declaration of Proverbs 2:1-5
Leviticus 10:12-15 (NASB)1
12 Then Moses spoke to Aaron, and to his surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, "Take the grain offering that is left over from the LORD'S offerings by fire and eat it unleavened beside the altar, for it is most holy. 13 "You shall eat it, moreover, in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons' due out of the LORD'S offerings by fire; for thus I have been commanded. 14 "The breast of the wave offering, however, and the thigh of the offering you may eat in a clean place, you and your sons and your daughters with you; for they have been given as your due and your sons' due out of the sacrifices of the peace offerings of the sons of Israel. 15 "The thigh offered by lifting up and the breast offered by waving they shall bring along with the offerings by fire of the portions of fat, to present as a wave offering before the LORD; so it shall be a thing perpetually due you and your sons with you, just as the LORD has commanded."
In the wake of the deaths of the two sons of Aaron, this passage is indicative of the life that goes on. It is so difficult when we're suffering from the raw and excruciating first pain of separation! We are shattered! It almost seems an insult to the departed to return to the daily mundane of living after they leave us, and yet, the living must still eat. Even while the grief is raw and the separation is near unbearable, the living must still perform the basic functions of life. Moses counseled the remaining sons of Aaron to stay confined in the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and not to participate in the public grief expressions for their brothers. Jewish tradition, even today, makes allowances for the outpouring of grief at the death of a close family member. The shirt, or an outer garment is rent in two. The first 24 hours or so after the death is known as the aninut.
There is no need to stifle any feeling during aninut. In the words of Ben Sira, “Bewail the dead. Hide not your grief. Do not restrain your mourning. It was most likely this outpouring of public emotion from which Moses asked the remaining brothers to restrain. All Israel would “bewail” the brothers in time. Kaddish is a ritual prayer for a dead loved one. Some think that it evolved long after the Exodus, and some believe it was earlier than that. Being raised in the path of Catholicism for the first fifteen years of my life, I was taught that one must pray for the dead. Then after, in the Protestant path I was taught that one must not pray for the dead. We can't change their fate one way or the other after death. However, the Kaddish in Judaism is perhaps more of a kind of prayer said in their memory and reminding the one who says Kaddish of the attributes of a loving and fantastic God.
The theme of Kaddish is the Greatness of Yahweh, Who conducts the entire universe, and especially his most favored creature, each human being, with careful supervision. In this prayer, we also pray for peace - from the only One Who can guarantee it - peace between nations, peace between individuals, and peace of mind. Paradoxically, this is, in fact, the only true comfort in the case of the loss of a loved one. That is, to be able to view the passing of the beloved individual from the perspective that that person's soul was gathered in, so to speak, by the One Who had provided it in the first place.
Back in the decade of the eighties, all I could think of saying as I looked upon the recently deceased face of my mother, and then later my father, even in the hearing of other relatives and staff was this: “My God doeth all things well.” I also testified to this the morning after my step-father had been killed in a motor vehicle accident. In the midst of great pain, that was all I could say. This simple statement was much like the Hebrew Kaddish since it afforded me the most comfort and peace at the time of these personal losses.
I believe that God was mourning for these sons as well. The Scripture says that God Himself spoke to Aaron about the edict to bar priests from taking wine or any other strong drink before their entrance to the Tent of Meeting, “for you must distinguish between the sacred and the profane and between the unclean and the clean…” God also, by this act, demonstrated to Aaron that He would not tolerate rebellion or disobedience to His commandments. Keeping in mind the similar vein of yesterday's Torah Bite, the most important thing to do was to take God seriously.
7 For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. Malachi 2:7.
I suppose this cuts to the hard truth that the priests were the role models of the Israelites, and so they had a large responsibility to act holy. And so the priest also required a readiness to teach in all areas of Jewish life, beginning with the most fundamental. The priesthood of Israel was required to distance itself from the traditions and practices of the nations around them. The traditions of the nations at that time were widely, what we would consider in our time, barbaric. They would cut themselves and disfigure their bodies. Women in some tribes, even today, observe the death of a significant other by cutting off the tip of a finger. To all those who practice such death rites, it is a ritual to somehow honor their dead. To the God of Creation, such rites are abhorrent. Common sense should tell us in a civilized society that those sorts of bereavement rituals are “way over the top”. If the priest does not know the difference between the sacred and the profane, then how can they teach and be role models to the people?
The Word tells us that Moses and Aaron soldiered on. Aaron was silent while Moses went about to issue some instructions regarding the sacrifices. I think I know what he might have felt. Perhaps he wanted to break down and wail but he knew that this was not an option. In the hour after our most cherished resident breathed her last I remember removing the things she no longer needed and one of those things was her special pain medication pump. I disconnected it, covered it with a towel, and removed it to the med room where I stood there babbling in the presence of the chaplain who had followed my every step after Vera's last breath. I felt, like an idiot, trying to present the ultimate in composure. I remember trying to keep my hands from shaking as I prepared the pump for the final reading of the dosage count. I prepared it for the medication cassette to be removed by the Supervisor when she would come to the unit to pronounce the death. I blinked back tears as I calmly went about not 'falling apart at the seams'. As I worked, keenly aware of the chaplain at my side, “This must be separated from the main tubing and Penny will have to remove this cassette so I’ll just use the clip so that no medication can leak out…” Perhaps it was pride. I had NO intention of “losing it” while in the presence of the chaplain. I don't know. Does it say something when a believer is trying to make a good witness to the nursing home chaplain? Perhaps Moses was going about the same type of activity. “Now boys, we can’t forget those offerings and we must eat them in the holy place, and don’t forget that these parts of the offerings belong to you and all the members of your families forever, by order of the Lord…”
Looking at things from a slightly different angle, the routine things of life can be a comfort after tragedy. We can look forward to the things that go on season after season even after great upheaval. Despite the loss of two sons, Aaron must have come to terms with a severe but loving God, as we’ll see in our reading tomorrow. But let us remain in the things of the day when it is still today. Then I plugged their names into my search engine and went from there. Judiciously ruling out questionable sources and taking only from those as led resulted in a view of the story from a slightly different perspective. The speculation as to exactly why the brothers died so swiftly under judgment can’t be laid down to simply a case of intoxication as some commentators discuss. Was it a mixture of errors? It could be. Under “fatal actions” we could compile a list. Under the heading, “their approach to God” we could list several things.
18 And they took every man his censer, and put fire in them, and laid incense thereon, and stood in the door of the tabernacle of the congregation with Moses and Aaron. 19 And Korah gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto all the congregation. 20 And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 21 Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. 22 And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation? 23 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 24 Speak unto the congregation, saying, Get you up from about the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram... 32 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. 33 They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. Numbers 16:18-24; 32; 33.
Was the sin of the brothers a sign of internal rebellion just as much as it had been with Korah and his following? This should be a pretty scary thought for all of us. We see two different sorts of people here. We see the priestly leaders succumb to the same base sin as those who are not in a leadership position. I wonder if the brothers were aware of how rebellious they were when they entered into the acts of worship that day. Since they were taken out before they could do further damage to the people of God will they receive mercy from His hand? Their act of rebellion may have come from their judgment which was possibly impaired by alcohol. What about Korah and his following? I tend to think that despite the root of sin rising in both sets of people here, there just might be a chance for the sons of Aaron while the open and rebellious and froward Korah and his followers. “Froward” is an old KJV term for being perverse, deceitful, and false. Froward brings with it an added sense of outright and determined rebellion. The Greek for froward is skolios, meaning crooked, perverse, wicked unfair, or surly. The Old Testament Hebrew for this same word is haphakpak and means the same: crooked and perverted. I wonder about these and many other things today. Yah will have mercy where He will have mercy.
Although it may be a while before we might ever truly know, this might have been a time in the life of Moses when the Torah and simply the recitation of it, the repetition of it served to keep him in a most harrowing situation. Is this tragedy going to come between God and Israel like the golden calf? Will this spell the decline of what was so gloriously begun? There must have been so many questions in the hearts and minds of those who became aware of this incident. I wonder if Moses was worried about “damage control”? How would so many others view this—as some family disgrace? And so it was that Moses made himself busy with the affairs of the Tabernacle after the death of Nadab and Abihu.
I suppose that it is no different than when we face the same type of challenge in our lives. We stand on those things that have meant the most to us and those things that we’ve based our lives on. There is nothing more doubly tragic than when a person faces the ultimate tragedy and has nothing with which to base the rest of his living on. I believe that my stepfather was one of these. After the death of his first wife from kidney disease, he stood by while his second wife died of cancer. Only this time, he didn’t have to be there for five children without a mother. I think our George wandered adrift for a whole year before he decided to anesthetize himself with alcohol and then set out on the highway where he would meet another vehicle head-on and in seven seconds he was dead. There is no way of knowing whether he had made a purposeful act of falling asleep at the wheel on the highway in the wee hours of a Friday morning, but he died one year and one month to the day of my mother's death.
Our own lives must be fitting role models for the world around us in this day. If we live in a “post-Christian” era, it is because the church has consented to the change by becoming so like the world that there is virtually no difference between the church standards and the standards of the world. We must strive to be holy in a very profane world! If we think that it is hard to be a role model to the world, then we haven’t tried to be a role model in some of our churches! Because of the fallen nature of the church today, there are so many who profess a relationship to God, who don’t know the difference between sacred things and the unholy, unclean things of the enemy. In my distant past, when an elder of a church tried to educate and warn his fellow believers about the real nature of Halloween, he was censured by the pastor. I knew a young man who professed his love for God by singing choruses almost non-stop. His testimony was frequent and loud about his devotion to His God. However, that same one dated a teenager and felt no compunction to take her to an R-rated movie, and then get her home at three in the morning. I always wondered why her parents, who were believers, didn't give that man in his late thirties the left foot of fellowship for his behavior. It was so obvious that he was not what he professed. The clarion call from Leviticus to “Draw near, be holy!” is echoed in the words of Peter, the Apostle.
13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 14 As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: 15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. 1 Peter 1:13-16.
There it is again! Vehalachta Bidrachav. You shall walk in His ways! Thank God for the book of Leviticus. In its pages are words of life! Am I saying to go out and sacrifice an animal? No! Only read about it and appreciate its value in explaining the entire New Testament and Messiah. I include myself in this last query. Have we found the past two days a little repetitive? This is good. It is Basic Believers’ “Boot Camp” theology that doesn’t seem to be in the mainstream church curriculum these days.
There is no need to stifle any feeling during aninut. In the words of Ben Sira, “Bewail the dead. Hide not your grief. Do not restrain your mourning. It was most likely this outpouring of public emotion from which Moses asked the remaining brothers to restrain. All Israel would “bewail” the brothers in time. Kaddish is a ritual prayer for a dead loved one. Some think that it evolved long after the Exodus, and some believe it was earlier than that. Being raised in the path of Catholicism for the first fifteen years of my life, I was taught that one must pray for the dead. Then after, in the Protestant path I was taught that one must not pray for the dead. We can't change their fate one way or the other after death. However, the Kaddish in Judaism is perhaps more of a kind of prayer said in their memory and reminding the one who says Kaddish of the attributes of a loving and fantastic God.
The theme of Kaddish is the Greatness of Yahweh, Who conducts the entire universe, and especially his most favored creature, each human being, with careful supervision. In this prayer, we also pray for peace - from the only One Who can guarantee it - peace between nations, peace between individuals, and peace of mind. Paradoxically, this is, in fact, the only true comfort in the case of the loss of a loved one. That is, to be able to view the passing of the beloved individual from the perspective that that person's soul was gathered in, so to speak, by the One Who had provided it in the first place.
Back in the decade of the eighties, all I could think of saying as I looked upon the recently deceased face of my mother, and then later my father, even in the hearing of other relatives and staff was this: “My God doeth all things well.” I also testified to this the morning after my step-father had been killed in a motor vehicle accident. In the midst of great pain, that was all I could say. This simple statement was much like the Hebrew Kaddish since it afforded me the most comfort and peace at the time of these personal losses.
I believe that God was mourning for these sons as well. The Scripture says that God Himself spoke to Aaron about the edict to bar priests from taking wine or any other strong drink before their entrance to the Tent of Meeting, “for you must distinguish between the sacred and the profane and between the unclean and the clean…” God also, by this act, demonstrated to Aaron that He would not tolerate rebellion or disobedience to His commandments. Keeping in mind the similar vein of yesterday's Torah Bite, the most important thing to do was to take God seriously.
7 For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. Malachi 2:7.
I suppose this cuts to the hard truth that the priests were the role models of the Israelites, and so they had a large responsibility to act holy. And so the priest also required a readiness to teach in all areas of Jewish life, beginning with the most fundamental. The priesthood of Israel was required to distance itself from the traditions and practices of the nations around them. The traditions of the nations at that time were widely, what we would consider in our time, barbaric. They would cut themselves and disfigure their bodies. Women in some tribes, even today, observe the death of a significant other by cutting off the tip of a finger. To all those who practice such death rites, it is a ritual to somehow honor their dead. To the God of Creation, such rites are abhorrent. Common sense should tell us in a civilized society that those sorts of bereavement rituals are “way over the top”. If the priest does not know the difference between the sacred and the profane, then how can they teach and be role models to the people?
The Word tells us that Moses and Aaron soldiered on. Aaron was silent while Moses went about to issue some instructions regarding the sacrifices. I think I know what he might have felt. Perhaps he wanted to break down and wail but he knew that this was not an option. In the hour after our most cherished resident breathed her last I remember removing the things she no longer needed and one of those things was her special pain medication pump. I disconnected it, covered it with a towel, and removed it to the med room where I stood there babbling in the presence of the chaplain who had followed my every step after Vera's last breath. I felt, like an idiot, trying to present the ultimate in composure. I remember trying to keep my hands from shaking as I prepared the pump for the final reading of the dosage count. I prepared it for the medication cassette to be removed by the Supervisor when she would come to the unit to pronounce the death. I blinked back tears as I calmly went about not 'falling apart at the seams'. As I worked, keenly aware of the chaplain at my side, “This must be separated from the main tubing and Penny will have to remove this cassette so I’ll just use the clip so that no medication can leak out…” Perhaps it was pride. I had NO intention of “losing it” while in the presence of the chaplain. I don't know. Does it say something when a believer is trying to make a good witness to the nursing home chaplain? Perhaps Moses was going about the same type of activity. “Now boys, we can’t forget those offerings and we must eat them in the holy place, and don’t forget that these parts of the offerings belong to you and all the members of your families forever, by order of the Lord…”
Looking at things from a slightly different angle, the routine things of life can be a comfort after tragedy. We can look forward to the things that go on season after season even after great upheaval. Despite the loss of two sons, Aaron must have come to terms with a severe but loving God, as we’ll see in our reading tomorrow. But let us remain in the things of the day when it is still today. Then I plugged their names into my search engine and went from there. Judiciously ruling out questionable sources and taking only from those as led resulted in a view of the story from a slightly different perspective. The speculation as to exactly why the brothers died so swiftly under judgment can’t be laid down to simply a case of intoxication as some commentators discuss. Was it a mixture of errors? It could be. Under “fatal actions” we could compile a list. Under the heading, “their approach to God” we could list several things.
- Their timing. Leviticus 16:1-2
- Their attitude Leviticus 10:3
- Their inclusion of “strange fire” into worship. (Coals not taken from the specified location) Leviticus 16:12
- Their condition. Leviticus 10: 9-10
18 And they took every man his censer, and put fire in them, and laid incense thereon, and stood in the door of the tabernacle of the congregation with Moses and Aaron. 19 And Korah gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto all the congregation. 20 And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 21 Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. 22 And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation? 23 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 24 Speak unto the congregation, saying, Get you up from about the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram... 32 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. 33 They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. Numbers 16:18-24; 32; 33.
Was the sin of the brothers a sign of internal rebellion just as much as it had been with Korah and his following? This should be a pretty scary thought for all of us. We see two different sorts of people here. We see the priestly leaders succumb to the same base sin as those who are not in a leadership position. I wonder if the brothers were aware of how rebellious they were when they entered into the acts of worship that day. Since they were taken out before they could do further damage to the people of God will they receive mercy from His hand? Their act of rebellion may have come from their judgment which was possibly impaired by alcohol. What about Korah and his following? I tend to think that despite the root of sin rising in both sets of people here, there just might be a chance for the sons of Aaron while the open and rebellious and froward Korah and his followers. “Froward” is an old KJV term for being perverse, deceitful, and false. Froward brings with it an added sense of outright and determined rebellion. The Greek for froward is skolios, meaning crooked, perverse, wicked unfair, or surly. The Old Testament Hebrew for this same word is haphakpak and means the same: crooked and perverted. I wonder about these and many other things today. Yah will have mercy where He will have mercy.
Although it may be a while before we might ever truly know, this might have been a time in the life of Moses when the Torah and simply the recitation of it, the repetition of it served to keep him in a most harrowing situation. Is this tragedy going to come between God and Israel like the golden calf? Will this spell the decline of what was so gloriously begun? There must have been so many questions in the hearts and minds of those who became aware of this incident. I wonder if Moses was worried about “damage control”? How would so many others view this—as some family disgrace? And so it was that Moses made himself busy with the affairs of the Tabernacle after the death of Nadab and Abihu.
I suppose that it is no different than when we face the same type of challenge in our lives. We stand on those things that have meant the most to us and those things that we’ve based our lives on. There is nothing more doubly tragic than when a person faces the ultimate tragedy and has nothing with which to base the rest of his living on. I believe that my stepfather was one of these. After the death of his first wife from kidney disease, he stood by while his second wife died of cancer. Only this time, he didn’t have to be there for five children without a mother. I think our George wandered adrift for a whole year before he decided to anesthetize himself with alcohol and then set out on the highway where he would meet another vehicle head-on and in seven seconds he was dead. There is no way of knowing whether he had made a purposeful act of falling asleep at the wheel on the highway in the wee hours of a Friday morning, but he died one year and one month to the day of my mother's death.
Our own lives must be fitting role models for the world around us in this day. If we live in a “post-Christian” era, it is because the church has consented to the change by becoming so like the world that there is virtually no difference between the church standards and the standards of the world. We must strive to be holy in a very profane world! If we think that it is hard to be a role model to the world, then we haven’t tried to be a role model in some of our churches! Because of the fallen nature of the church today, there are so many who profess a relationship to God, who don’t know the difference between sacred things and the unholy, unclean things of the enemy. In my distant past, when an elder of a church tried to educate and warn his fellow believers about the real nature of Halloween, he was censured by the pastor. I knew a young man who professed his love for God by singing choruses almost non-stop. His testimony was frequent and loud about his devotion to His God. However, that same one dated a teenager and felt no compunction to take her to an R-rated movie, and then get her home at three in the morning. I always wondered why her parents, who were believers, didn't give that man in his late thirties the left foot of fellowship for his behavior. It was so obvious that he was not what he professed. The clarion call from Leviticus to “Draw near, be holy!” is echoed in the words of Peter, the Apostle.
13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 14 As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: 15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. 1 Peter 1:13-16.
There it is again! Vehalachta Bidrachav. You shall walk in His ways! Thank God for the book of Leviticus. In its pages are words of life! Am I saying to go out and sacrifice an animal? No! Only read about it and appreciate its value in explaining the entire New Testament and Messiah. I include myself in this last query. Have we found the past two days a little repetitive? This is good. It is Basic Believers’ “Boot Camp” theology that doesn’t seem to be in the mainstream church curriculum these days.
Vehalachta Bidrachav. You shall walk in His ways!
1 NASB www.lockman.org for daily reading and KJV in commentary unless otherwise specified
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