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Patriarchy Is Good for Women

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Matriarchy might look good in theory, but it’s about as useful as having all feet and no hands. (See 1 Corinthians 12.)

Says the Elusive Wapiti:

But what feminists didn’t realize at the time they took patriarchy out back and shot it is that patriarchy, among other things, lassoed men into socially constructive behavior and dutiful service of society as a whole. And women in particular. Freed from patriarchy, men were free to throw off the yoke of duty and other-focused behavior and could pursue their own self interests full-tilt. Which quite a few dudes did, and found that a world without patriarchy–the world that women all yelled and screamed and marched and burnt bras for–suited them just fine. And they thought that this world was the one that women wanted.

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Balak 5770 – A Chink in Your Armor

Saturday, June 26th, 2010
Numbers 22:2-25:9
Micah 5:6-6:8
I Corinthians 1:20-31

Proverbs 26:2  As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.

There seems a discrepency between the idea that we are created in God’s image to the extent that our words have creative force, that there is power in our prayers, and the opposing idea that a curse has no power unless it is deserved and that a prophet can speak neither blessing nor curse unless God allows it. There is truth on both sides if properly understood.

We were created in God’s image, but we are not exact copies, the earthly tabernacle was a corruptible copy of the one in Heaven, the feast days are shadows of the reality that is the Messiah, and mankind is an imperfect, much scaled down replica of God. Unlike him, we cannot create something out of nothing by merely speaking. We need something on which to build. We are unable to get our own dirt, so we have to make do with what we can find.

When Balaam tried to curse Israel, he failed because, as a prophet, he could only prophecy what God told him. His patron, Balak, understood the principle of Proverbs 26:2, that a curse undeserved has no effect, so he took Balaam to first one place and then another, thinking that a different perspective might give Balaam the hook he needed to make the curse stick. But he misunderstood the nature of a real prophet: prophesy comes from God and no other. If a prophet speaks truth, then his words are the words of God, and God can no more curse the righteous than could Balaam. Hence Balaam’s statement that “[YHWH] has not seen iniquity in Jacob, neither has He seen perverseness in Israel.” It was not that Israel had no sin at all, but that God had chosen to forgive them. Like a husband who chooses to overlook his wife’s flaws, from God’s point of view, Israel had no sin to which a curse could attach.

Finding no fault in Israel, Balaam showed Balak how he might create one that God could not overlook by seducing them into idolatry. This is the “doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication.” (Revelation 2:14) Eating “things sacrificed to idols” does not refer simply to eating meat from sacrificial animals, but to actively participating in the sacrifice. Those who teach God’s people that it is acceptable to engage in pagan rituals and abandon God’s law so long as their “hearts are in the right place” are today’s Balaam. They cause God’s people to commit sins that he cannot overlook, opening them to whatever curse the enemy might choose to throw.

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Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5770 – Relating to God

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

These two Torah portions are about how we are and are not to relate to God. Since marriage is an image of our relationship to God, they contain many examples of forbidden human relationships.

  • Leviticus 16 – Approaching God as a nation.
  • Levitucus 17 – Approaching God as individuals. Things that will prevent closeness.
  • Leviticus 18 – Mistakes other peoples made in their relationships. Judgment as a nation and as individuals.
    • Men with women
    • The offspring of relationships between men and women
    • Men with men
    • Men and women with animals
  • Leviticus 19 – Being set apart from other nations by a healthy relationship with God and each other.
  • Leviticus 20 – Refusing to be different creates unhealthy relationships with God and each other. Don’t blow it.

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Manual for Priests

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Ariel ben-Lyman HaNaviy makes a very good point in his teaching on Tzav this week. (Part A is great. Part B contains too much rabbinic mythology.) The book of Leviticus (aka Vayikra) is a manual for priests. Christian men claim to be the priests of their homes. LDS men claim to be priests of another sort. The Torah says that Israel is to be a kingdom of priests to the world, and John wrote that Yeshua has made all those who believe on him to be kings and priests. Here in Leviticus we have a manual for priests. Even though it was specifically addressed to the Levitical order, it is full of principles and patterns that apply to all priests of whatever order.

P.S. Here is an interesting thought. I have heard it taught that David was able to eat the bread of the Tabernacle without repercussion because he was also a priest, but of a different order. Being a foreshadowing of the Moshiach ben David, he too was a priest of the order of Melchizedek, which consists of a royal priesthood, men who are both kings and priests simultaneously. If Yeshua has made all those who believe on him to be both kings and priests, then this line of reasoning implies that all believers have the same (or parallel) responsibilities and privileges as the Cohanim. That does not mean that they are above the Law any more than David was. On the contrary, both priests and kings are held to a higher standard. I am not saying that this is a correct interpretation, only that it is a possibility worth considering.

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Ki Tisa 5770 – Honorable Priorities

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

God wants obedience. He said that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. Yet, Moses and Elijah both appear to have disobeyed God and were honored for it.

Moses came down from Sinai to find the people worshiping and sacrificing to the golden calf, and God said, “Step aside, Moses. I’m going to destroy these people and start over with you.” Moses refused and appealed to God’s reputation to convince him not to destroy Israel. “What will the Egyptians think of you?” God honored Moses’ plea and spared the nation. (Exodus 32:7-14)

Although God had said that the only place authorized for making sacrifices was at the place where he would “put his name,” Elijah built an altar at the other end of the country. After he put the sacrifice on it and soaked it with water, he asked God to light it for him, and God did, sending fire from heaven to consume it, stones, water, and all. (1 Kings 18:18-40)

Why didn’t God push Moses out of the way and finish what he started? It’s not like Moses actually had any real power. Who is man that God should listen to him? Why didn’t he tell Elijah to go to Jerusalem for his contest with the prophets of Baal? Why did he honor Elijah’s disobedience in such a spectacular manner?

The truth is that neither Moses nor Elijah were actually disobedient. If you have been keeping Torah for long, then you have probably realized that there are times when you must break (or stretch) one law in order to keep another. For example, it’s good to work on the Sabbath in order to free a trapped animal or to heal an injured man or feed the hungry. That’s not disobedience at all, but sometimes it takes a great deal of wisdom to weigh the competing priorities. The same thing is going on in both of these stories.

In the Torah, God never named the specific place that would bear his name. It is possible that he could change the location authorized for sacrifices or even authorize multiple locations. There is some room for interpretation in that law (Deuteronomy 12:11). On the other hand, there can be no compromise with Baal or his prophets. We are not to tolerate them, and especially not in the land of Israel. That is God’s land, and they were interlopers. Elijah took the fight into the place they thought of as their own, rebuilt one of God’s altars and proved who was the real owner. He understood God’s character well enough to know which rule took precedence in that situation.

God gave Moses authority over and responsibility for the people of Israel. He was their judge, teacher, and protector. He was the man whom God used to free them from captivity. When they fought the Amalekites, Moses’ upraised arms enabled their victory. When they complained against God, his intercession saved them from destruction. Moses, by divine appointment and as a type of the Messiah, was a spiritual covering for Israel. When God threatened to destroy them, Moses was duty-bound to intervene even against God himself. His role as Israel’s leader took precedence over any possible role as the progenitor of a new people, and he honored God by putting his own life on the line to save his disobedient, ungrateful people.* “God if you will destroy these people, then destroy me too, because otherwise I will have failed them, you, and myself.” Like Elijah, he had a heart that understood God’s.

I pray that YHWH will bless me with such understanding, with such love, with such a relationship with him, that I will know how to obey him even when obedience seems impossible, how to honor his calling, his people, and his Torah. Barukh YHWH!

*What a great example for all leaders and husbands! Moses put his own life in jeopardy because his love for God and his people demanded it.

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Tetzaveh 5770 – Set Apart and Carried Away

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Some Torah portions are much harder to study and teach than others. I love everything about Genesis; it’s stories lend themselves very well to theological concepts. Exodus and Leviticus with their detailed descriptions of the priestly duties, the tabernacle, and the various articles of worship is not so easy to parse. On one level, it is very simple: make this object in this manner and do this with it. There’s nothing complicated about that. However, God threw a very large wrench into this simplistic understanding when he said to Ezekiel,

Ezekiel 43:10-11  You, son of man, give the children of Israel an account of this house, so that they may be shamed because of their evil-doing: and let them see the vision of it and its image.  (11)  And they will be shamed by what they have done; so give them the knowledge of the form of the house and its structure, and the ways out of it and into it, and all its laws and its rules, writing it down for them: so that they may keep all its laws and do them.

Huh? Israel is supposed to look at God’s house, note the dimensions and materials…and be ashamed? How could the ins and outs of the Tabernacle or the Temple make the people ashamed of anything? It was built by people who lived long before Ezekiel and was used almost exclusively by the priests. What does any of it have to do with Joe the Shepherd or Tina the Chef?

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, then you’ll know that I don’t believe anything in the Torah has only one meaning. Very little, if anything, in this universe is single dimensional. It turns out that there are so many things to talk about in these seemingly dry, technical passages, that I have difficulty focusing on any one thing! In Tetzaveh we can learn about the character of God, the role of the Messiah, our relationship with both of those, salvation from sin and judgment, the role of a father in his family, and much more. Let me give you just one example that shows how much God loves his people.

Exodus 28:36-38  And you shall make a plate of pure gold, and carve on it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO YHWH.  (37)  And you shall put a ribbon on it, and it shall be on the miter; to the front of the miter it shall be.  (38)  And it shall be on Aaron’s forehead, so that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which will sanctify the sons of Israel in all their holy gifts. And it shall always be on his forehead, so that they may be accepted before YHWH.

The High Priest wears a gold crown of sorts. Engraved across the front, resting on his forehead, are the words, “Set Apart to YHWH.” This torah portion tells us that this is because he takes onto himself the “iniquities of the holy things.” What a contradiction! How can holy things be sinful? These things are holy because they are set apart from other things, not because they are perfect. The Hebrew word for holy is kadosh, and it literally means “set apart.” The holy offerings of Israel are like you and me. In fact, they are you and me. We aren’t perfect, and we never will be. There is no way in heaven or on earth that you and I can present ourselves to God perfectly unblemished. We need a High Priest who will take our meager, pathetic offerings and take responsibility for their faults onto himself. Through the blood of Yeshua, our Messiah, shed by the thorns dug into his forehead, our inadequacies are lifted off our own heads and placed on his. Without God’s grace to accept that shift, we would be without hope. We would be condemned as forever separated from our Creator, set apart forever, but away from him and not to him. In his mercy, he provided a way for us to approach him, to offer him our broken and scarred hearts as if they were a perfect and holy living sacrifice, completely acceptable in the highest court of Heaven.

What greater love could there be?

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Love?

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Leviticus 19:18  Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Leviticus 19:34  But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 6:5  And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Deuteronomy 10:12  And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

Deuteronomy 10:19  Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 11:1  Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.

Deuteronomy 13:3  …for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 30:16  …I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

Joshua 22:5  But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Joshua 23:11  Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the LORD your God.

Nehemiah 1:5  …O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments…

Psalms 31:23  O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.

Psalms 97:10  Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.

Proverbs 10:12  Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.

Proverbs 17:9  He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.

Matthew 5:44  …Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Matthew 19:19   …Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Mark 12:29-31  And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is,  Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:  (30)  And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.  (31)  And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Mark 12:33  And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

John 14:15  If ye love me, keep my commandments.

John 15:9  As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

John 15:12  This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

Romans 12:10  Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;

Romans 13:9  For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Ephesians 4:2-3  With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;  (3)  Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 5:1-2  Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;  (2)  And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

Ephesians 5:25  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

1 Thessalonians 3:12  And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:

1 Thessalonians 4:9  But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

1 Timothy 6:11  But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

Titus 2:4  …teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children…

Hebrews 10:24  And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works…

Hebrews 13:1  Let brotherly love continue.

James 2:8  If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well…

1 Peter 1:22  Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.

1 Peter 2:17  Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

1 Peter 3:8-9  Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:  (9)  Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.

1 John 3:11  For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

1 John 3:18  My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

1 John 4:7-8  Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  (8)  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1 John 4:21  And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

2 John 1:5-6  And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.  (6)  And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.

Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.

We are commanded over and over again to love, but do we even know what love is? The scriptures are clear to an extent: To love God is to obey his commandments. To love others is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to heal the sick. We have heard these things so many times that they have become meaningless!

What does it really mean to feed the hungry? Do we all need to go volunteer at the local Rescue Mission? Should we haul a pot of soup under the nearest bridge? What? What if there aren’t any destitute nearby? What if you don’t know where to find them? Should we just give some money to the Salvation Army and let them handle it? Is it enough just to be kind to those closest to you?

What does it really mean to obey God’s commands? Do I love God if I wear my tzitziyot religiously? Do I love him if I read the Torah and teach it to others? What!?

It truly bothers me that I am asking these questions. I feel that I should know without any hesitation what it means to love in every circumstance. I pray for the time when God’s law will be fully written on my heart, but that day isn’t now. There are many things that I don’t understand, many instances in which I have not shown love or even knew what love would be.

I have written a book examining the manual on marital and familial love, and I intend to write a few more, but still my understanding of love has not approached what it ought to be. This will be the focus of my Torah studies from now on because if keeping Torah doesn’t teach you to love, then you are not keeping Torah. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees you will in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.” The pharisees didn’t love God; they loved their traditions. If you obey all the rules and say all the right things, yet don’t have love, you don’t have anything.

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Mishpatim 5770 – Property Rights

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Mishpatim lists a seemingly random set of commandments, but a closer look shows that they are not really so random. The common theme is property rights.

Exodus 21:1 Introduction
Exodus 21:2-11 Rights of a master over a slave.
Exodus 21:12-36 Rights of a person over his own life and limb
Exodus 22:1-15 Rights of the owner of livestock, crops, and other property
Exodus 22:16-17 Rights of a father and future husband over a daughter and future bride
Exodus 22:18-23:19 God’s expectations of those to whom he has delegated authority
Exodus 23:20-23 God’s expectations of those under delegated authority
Exodus 23:24-33 Rights of God over his property
Exodus 24:1-18 Closing

A word about the rights of fathers over their daughters…I wrote in A Commentary on Marriage in the Bible that a father always has the right to veto his daughter’s choice of husband. I no longer believe that to be completely true. Matot (Numbers 30-32) says that a father may annul the vows of his unmarried daughter still living in his house. I have had occasion since then to learn something of the life of an unmarried daughter who is not still living in her father’s house, and it seems to me that Matot should be taken literally on that point. If she left her father’s house with his consent and has lived on her own for many years, then she should probably be accorded the status of a widow or divorcee, responsible for her own finances, decisions, and vows.

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Increasing Complexity

Monday, February 8th, 2010

In the sequence of Creation as depicted in Genesis chapter one, God handiwork becomes more and more complex as the week goes on. First light, then stars and planets, then plants, then animals, then man, and finally woman, who truly is the piece de resistance of God’s creativity.

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Yitro 5770 – Father Sky, Mother Earth

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Exodus 20:24-26  You shall make an altar of earth to Me, and shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In all places where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you.  (25)  And if you will make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of cut stone. For if you lift up your tool upon it, you have defiled it.  (26)  And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness be not uncovered on it.

In a very real sense, God is our father and the earth our mother. The God of heaven took a bit of earth and breathed his spirit into it, creating life. This fact in combination with the astounding miracles of reproduction, of putting seeds in the ground so that they will sprout and produce more seeds, of a man and woman joining their bodies to create a new person, could easily lead people into fertility cults. If imitation is the sincerest flattery, how better can we worship the Creator than through an act of creation? The command to make an altar of earth in order to worship the God of heaven re-emphasizes our descent from these two. However, there are two more commands attached to this one that strongly imply God does not approve of sex as an act of worship.

In the first command, God says we are not to build the altar with cut stones. We might have ideas about how to make a more beautiful altar, but God has said he will prepare the stones. We get to select them and place them, but the materials and format are strictly up to him. God wants his worship, his way, not ours. He has told us how he is to be worshiped, and, although we might have a great deal of leeway in some of the details, we are not free to improvise however we choose. Although he commanded us to reproduce, he did not command us to worship him through the reproductive act.

In the second command, God says the altar should be placed so as to avoid even accidental exposure of the priest’s nakedness. If there was any doubt as to whether nudity should or should not be a part of overt worship, that should quell it.

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