Tag Archives: Moses

Behaalotecha

Posted on by
Reply

We are now on the Torah portion Behaalotecha, Numbers 8:1-12:16.

8:5-22; God instructs Moses on the ritual for consecrating the Levites as the priestly tribe-the washing of the clothes, the laying on of hands by the Israelites, the sacrificing of the bulls. God selects the Levites, instead of taking the first born, for performing the rites at the Mishkan.

8:23-26; God tells Moses that the Levites would begin their service at the Mishkan at age 25, and retire at age 50 and serve as a sort of ‘honor guard” at the Mishkan. A new generation must be developed to take over after the older generation, but the older people must be on hand to advise the youngsters. (Youth and age each have their virtues; it’s not either-or.)

11:1-9; the Israelites complain to Moses about not having any meat to eat, but having nothing bot the manna; they talk about the vast array of food they had when they were slaves in Egypt. (this is one of the times they show a lack of faith in themselves, believing they can’t handle being a free people; also, the idea of nostalgia comes up, the glorifying the “good old days” whenever there are difficulties in the present. The liberation of Israel from bondage was a revolution, a serious social upheaval, and such events create a beautiful picture of the old regime, which does not match reality.)

11:10-25; Moses gets upset with all the complaining he hears from the people, crying “I can’t take care of all these people!” God tells Moses to assemble 70 of the Israelite elders, experienced leaders, so that God;s spirit would descend upon them and share Moses’ burden of leadership. (This shows that one individual, no mater how talented and gifted, cannot do everything in running a tribe or an organization; they need other talented people to help them with leading the tribe or other body.)

11:26-30; Two lay Israelite, Eldad and Medad, have the spirit of God in them, and they “spoke in ecstasy.” Joshua urges Moses to make them stop, but Moses says, “would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD put His spirit upon them.” God, spiritual development, and participation in any body, is the right and responsibility of all of the community, not just an elite.

Parshat Ki-Tissa

Posted on by
Reply

This weekend we studied the Torah portion Ki-Tissa, Exodus 30:11-34:35. God instructs Moses on the making of the basin for the water that Aaron and his sons, the priests, to wash their hands and feet before entering the Mishkin, the traveling tabernacle. The portion also has the ingredients for making the oil for anointing the priests and the posts of the Mishkan, and the ingredients of the incense; could we try to make them using these recipes now?

The Israelites, panicking over Moses being away for so long,   Aaron urges the Israelites to donate their gold to the making of the Golden Calf; this was the same gold they attained from the Egyptians on their way out of Egypt, as a form of reparations for over four decades of slavery. In their panic, they forgot the God who brought forth the miracles of the plagues upon Egypt, and the parting of the Red Sea.  Did they think this object they manufactured with their hands was their true God?

And-was Aaron afraid of being killed by the mob? Or was he buying time until Moses came back?

Throughout the Torah, the Israelites complain about their situation and yell, “Let’s go back to Egypt!” to the slavery that they experienced, the only reality they knew, having been slaves for such a long time. Were the Israelites, in making the Golden Calf, hoping to appease the Egyptians by doing this?

It’s happened in domestic violence situations; battered spouses run away from their batterer, then they go back to their abusive partners, hoping they have changed and would not do it again; but the violence starts up again. They needed Moses’ leadership to have faith in God and themselves in making themselves into the nation meant for God’s service.

Torah Portion Bo

Posted on by
2

This weekend we have studied the Torah portion Bo, Exodus 10.1-13:16. In this portion, Moses and Aaron continue to approach Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt to worship their God; but each time, Pharaoh refuses to allow it, no matter how severe the plague is on his nation and his people. God, through His prophet Moses, inflicts further plagues on Egypt-Locusts and Darkness. Pharaoh’s own courtiers plead with the king to give in, or the nation would be destroyed. But Pharaoh, still believing himself to be a god-despots develop big egos-refuses to budge, and does not allow the Hebrews to leave Egypt.

Then finally, there is the final plague, the Death of the First-Born, from the children pf Pharaoh to the children of the slave girls. Pharaoh’s will is finally broken, and he begs Moses to take the Israelite out of Egypt. the great thing is, Moses, once a prince of Egypt, was still respected in the court, and the Egyptians looked favorably upon the Israelites. The Egyptians, like all lower-class people, suffer from the stupidity and egotism of their rulers. In the portion is the beginning of the holiday Peach, the commemoration of the liberation of the Hebrews from slavery, with the origins of the Seder; and of the redeeming of the first-born.

Shelah-Lecha

Posted on by
Reply

I have been reading the current Torah portion, Shelah-Lacha, Numbers 13:1-15:41. this has always been my favorite, because it deals with such issues as self-esteem and self-respect, issues I’ve dealt with for a lifetime.

God orders Moses to “send men to scout the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite people.” There was to be one man from each of the Israelite tribes, men of respect in each tribes, to examine the state of the land-is it fertile, are the people there strong or weak, are the cities fortified?  Mosses sends these instructions to the twelve spies, two of them being Caleb, from the House of Judah and Hosea, from the House of Ephraim. (Moses changed the name of Hosea to Joshua, why?)

The spies receive their instructions, and go into the land for forty days. They scout the wilderness from Zin to Rehob, and in to the Negev and through Hebron, to the wadi Eshcol; they cut down a huge cluster of grapes, which they had to carry on a wooden beam. After the forty days, the spies return to the Israelite camp, and report, the does indeed flow with milk and honey, bu the people there are powerful, and the cities are fortified.”

Caleb insisted “We can take them on, we can beat them and take the land!” But only Joshua and Caleb were positive about the outcome, and the majority of the spies said, “we can’t attack these people they’re stronger than we are,” adding-this is the most important part-“we looked like grasshopper to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”

The Israelites panicked, and rioted against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites scream, “If only we died in Egypt! Let’s go back to Egypt!” Here is their low self-image: the spies, leaders of the people, said their own people looked like grasshoppers, little crawling insects, to their., the leaders’ eyes, and they projected that low self-image as emanating from the people in the land. (That is projection: “I don’t like myself, and so neither does anyone else.”) The spies tell the people that they were grasshoppers compared o the people of the land, instead of trying to boost their self-image, which obviously was at bottom due to being enslaved in Egypt and forced into a slave mentality of feeling inferior.

God threatens to wipe the Israelite nation out due to their disobedience, but Moses tells God, “When the Egyptians, who whose midst you brought these people out, hear of this, they will say that God is powerless to bring these people into the land which he promised them.”  Moses pleads with God to forgive the people, but God says that none of the people of the generation of slavery would enter the land, except for Caleb and Joshua. the entire Israelite nation would remain out of the land for forty years, for each one of the days the scouts reconnoitered the land. How often do our fears and self-limitations keep us from attaining out own “promised land,” the fulfillment of the best we all could be?

The Haforah for the portion is Joshua, second chapter, where he orders a duo of spies to scout out the city of Jericho. the spies enter the house of the harlot Rahab, right on the wall of Jericho. Rahab hides the spies in her house, and the king’s soldiers ask her if she saw them; she tells the soldiers, “The men left, I don’t know where they are, go after them.” Rahab tells the spies, “I know the LORD has given the country to you, because dread of you has fallen upon us, and the inhabitants of the land are quaking before you. e heard of how the LORD has dried up the Sea of reeds for you when you left Egypt,  and what you did to the two Amorite kings.” Rahab, the harlot, knows that God is the only God of Heaven and Earth, and she helps the spies escape over the city walls. (A woman who we would look down on in this day was the hero of the story.)

Have you ever heard the line, “I didn’t know my own strength?”  Do we really know how strong and capable we are? Have we been brainwashed into thinking we are helpless and powerless in changing our predicament? Lord knows I’ve had those feeling lot of times, but I’m resisting them, and finding my strength. I urge you to do the same.