Next week is the annual feast of Passover, which commemorates the Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt. In the Tanakh, Passover refers specifically to the sacrifice offered at the end of the 14th day of the First Biblical Month, whereas the feast is referred to as Chag HaMatzot, Feast of Unleavened Bread. Every Israelite was required to partake in the Passover sacrifice in order to remain part of God’s covenant-nation (Nu 9:7, 13). Eating of the Passover sacrifice was also the means for non-Israelites to enter the covenant. The Israelites left Egypt with a mixed multitude of people from numerous nations and the 12th chapter of Exodus explains how these foreigners could become part of the covenant-nation:

When a sojourner sojourns among you and does the Passover to Yehovah, circumcise for him every male and then he will approach to do it and shall become as a native-born of the land… There shall be one Torah for the native-born and for the sojourner who sojourns among you.”

The Torah is saying that by eating of the Passover sacrifice, the circumcised Gentile becomes an Israelite. There is no legal distinction between the native-born Israelite of the physical seed of Jacob and the sojourner who joins the covenant-nation through the Passover sacrifice.

With the destruction of the Temple, most Jews believe that the duty of sacrifice, including the Passover, must be fulfilled through prayer. This is a lesson that appears in the 14th chapter of Hosea. This prophet lived in the Kingdom of Israel at a time when it was at war with the Kingdom of Judah. The Jerusalem Temple was in Judah leaving the inhabitants of Israel cut off from the Temple and all legitimate sacrifice. In this context, the prophet teaches the people a path to repentance which includes fulfilling the duty of sacrifices through prayer:

Return, O Israel, to Yehovah your God for you have stumbled in your iniquity. Take with you words and return to Yehovah, say to him: “Forgive all iniquity, and receive goodness, and let us pay for the bulls with our lips. Assyria will not save us, nor shall we ride upon horse; and we shall no longer call the work of our hands ‘our gods’, because in you the orphan finds mercy.” Hosea 14:2-4

The elements of repentance that the prophet Hosea lays down are:

1) Return to God, 2) Ask for forgiveness, 3) Do good in place of the bad you have done, 4) ask God to accept prayer as a payment for sacrifice, 5) profess God to be your only savior, not man or your own might, 6) deny false gods of your own creation, and 7) proclaim God as the Father who acts mercifully even to the fatherless. Ever since the destruction of the Temple, Jewish “sojourners” have followed the teaching of Hosea and joined the covenant-nation by participating in prayers at the Passover seder, the annual commemoration of the sacrifice on the first night of Chag HaMatzot.

In modern times, becoming a Jewish sojourner has become not only a religious act but also a political one. It entitles the “convert” to citizenship under the Israeli “Law of Return”. The secular State of Israel has stepped in and imposed certain standards that every Jewish denomination must follow in their conversions. The Karaite Jewish community is no exception. As a result, modern-day conversion, unfortunately, has as much to do with Israeli religion-politics as it does with being a true Israelite in the eyes of the Creator as set down in his Torah. The running joke in Israel is that if Ruth the Moabite turned up at the border she would not be recognized as a Jew.

Up until 2007, the Karaite Jewish community did not perform any conversions of non-Jews. In July of that year I was privileged to be present at the first formal conversion ceremony of this sort in recent memory at the Karaite Jewish synagogue in Daly City, California. The conversion ceremony was carried out by the “Karaite Jews of America” with the approval of the “Council of Sages”, the official Karaite Jewish institution recognized by the State of Israel. When the idea of conversion was first presented to the “Council of Sages” they insisted on certain standards beyond those imposed by the State. One of their biggest issues was that Karaite conversion not be “evangelical”. The Christian evangelical spirit of going out and convincing people to change their beliefs is alien to the Jewish experience of the last 1000+ years. In most parts of the Diaspora, evangelizing to the Jewish faith was punishable by death at the hands of the Gentiles. This made Jews gun-shy about spreading their faith and this is still the general Jewish sentiment today. Whereas Christians consider it the greatest piety to convince people to change their beliefs, in the Jewish world this is considered a repugnant thing. The Jewish attitude is that our covenant of faith with God is a closely-guarded treasure. If a non-Jew wants to share in this treasure he must come of his own volition and internal conviction. In fact, Jewish tradition teaches that when a Gentile comes and asks to convert he must be refused three times. Only upon the fourth request is he allowed. We Jews are not eager to share our spiritual gold.

While the Karaite Jewish conversion process does not observe this ritual refusal, those who wish to convert are required to arrive at Karaite beliefs on their own before being eligible. Going out and evangelizing those of other faiths is strictly taboo. In the Christian and Muslim worlds “missionaries” are considered heroes but in Jewish culture they are thought of as vampires who prey upon unsuspecting and unwilling victims. While I can’t say this is a biblical attitude it certainly is a Jewish one that I am not immune to. Recently a friend on Facebook said I was “as pious as a missionary” and I thought she was casting the worst insult at me, until I realized that in her terminology this was meant to be a profound complement.

The conversion ceremony in Daly City wasn’t about missionizing or even making people Karaites. The candidates had to be of Karaite faith and practice long before being accepted into the year-long conversion process. The conversion ceremony was about making them Jews in the formal sense, recognized by an established Jewish community, and ultimately by the State of Israel. The Karaite Jewish Bet Din (religious court) in Daly City didn’t convert Christians or Muslims or Buddhists to Judaism; they converted non-Jewish Karaites to (Karaite) Judaism. The first man in line for the conversion ceremony was a dear friend who had been living as a non-Jewish Karaite for nearly a decade. His formal acceptance as a Karaite Jew was a monumental moment of prophetic significance for me. I see it as a fulfillment of Isaiah 56 which speaks about the son of the Gentile who joins himself to Yehovah becoming an integral part of Yehovah’s people. The end of that prophecy says:

Thus says Lord Yehovah, who gathers in the dispersed of Israel, I will gather others unto those I have gathered.

I have lived this prophecy, having been gathered from a dark corner of the Diaspora to the covenant-land that God gave my people. I’ve also seen those “others”, people all around the world, gathered to the God of Israel and his covenant. Most of these “others” will never convert to Judaism but I still believe they are a fulfillment of this prophecy, each through his own relationship with the Creator of the universe.

Over the years I’ve met Jews of both the rabbinical and Karaite persuasions who do feel called to convince people to embrace the Jewish faith. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with this approach but it is the exception to the rule. One such exception was an old Karaite man in Jerusalem named Mordechai Alfandari. He once told me how Christian missionaries used to harass him on the subway in New York when he was a boy. He spent a great deal of his energies over the next 60 years engaged in Jewish apologetics. I consider Mordechai my mentor as he is the one who opened my eyes to speaking the name of God, which incidentally he pronounced Yihweh. When Mordechai passed away in 1999 I felt like it was expected of me to follow in his footsteps as a counter-missionary but my heart was never in it. The more time I spent speaking with Christians, the more I found I had in common with them. It seemed to me to be a colossal waste of time and energy arguing with them when there was so much we could learn from one another. I realized you can always find differences with people if you want to. God knows there are plenty of differences between me and other Jews and even between me and other Karaites. I decided I would focus my energies on what I have in common with people rather than the differences.

Today I don’t see it as my job to convince anyone to accept my faith. I believe God is the one who changes the hearts of men, not missionaries or preachers. I see my role as empowering people with information so they can understand the roots of their faith in its original language and context. I am convinced this has value for Jews, Christians, and anyone else who professes the truth of the one true God and his prophet Moses. I’m not sure Mordechai would be pleased with what I am doing today, but I need to follow what I feel my heavenly Father has called me to do. The good news is that a day is coming when the Messiah will sit as the flesh and blood King of Israel, enabling all those who believe in the covenant of the one true God to sit together at the same table and partake in the literal Passover sacrifice. May it be soon in our days!

Nehemia Gordon
Jerusalem, Israel

The name Esau comes from a root meaning “accomplished” or “complete,” and its characters share the same numerical value as the characters of the word shalom. Yet those things were not in his actual name. Esau was neither complete nor peaceful. Instead he was careless and angry. Red. Edom.

One take-away is the possibility that Esau could have become the man at which his name hinted. In trading the transcendent (his birthright) for the transient (a bowl of stew) he became a sort of reverse spiritual alchemist, turning potential gold into certain stubble. This is the inevitable end of the exceedingly passionate, to be wholly  consumed by their urges.

Passion is a good and powerful force when checked by the Spirit. When it is allowed to run free, it is crippling. Esau, in remaining enslaved to his passions, never approached the complete peace that he could have attained by submitting desire and passion to a higher calling in his father’s house.

A few thoughts on Chukat:

• Red is the color of mortality and blood. A heifer is a cow that has never calved. The red heifer was to be completely consumed along with cedar, hyssop, and a scarlet thread. Cedar, hyssop, and scarlet appear to be a reference to the cross. The ashes of the red heifer were collected, mixed with water, and used to ritually cleanse a thing or person from contact with death. Water is typical of the Holy Spirit. In summary, something mortal and which bears no fruit is completely given over to God in association with the death of Yeshua on the cross. In combination with the baptism of the Spirit, it saves us from death. This sounds like Yeshua’s words to Nicodemus in John 3.
• When Miriam died, there was no water to drink, and perhaps no water to mix with the ashes of the heifer to purify the people after her death. The people did not mourn her, but mourned themselves and their own discomfort. Shortly after that, they were sent back into the wilderness by the king of Edom. When Aaron died, the people mourned for thirty days and then defeated the king of Arad.
• Bronze represents judgment. When the people rebelled again and were punished through poisonous snakes, God told Moses to erect a bronze serpent on a pole in the middle of the camp. When the people were bitten by the consequences of their sin, they could look up and see the judgment of God on a stake and be healed. Reference again the words of Yeshua in John 3.

Galatians 5:2  Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you are circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

Those are pretty strong words. What should we tell the hundreds of millions of American men? Sorry. You missed the boat. You now have to obey every “jot and tittle” of the Law or you’ll go to Hell. Of course not. Nobody believes that the physical condition of being circumcised equates to a rejection of salvation by grace. What most people actually believe is that if a man voluntarily becomes circumcised as a religious act of obedience to God’s command, only then has he rejected Jesus’ work on the Cross. By legalistically adhering to an outmoded command, he acts as if Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplished nothing.

That certainly sounds like a reasonable interpretation. It doesn’t condemn innocent children for things outside their control, and it emphasizes the liberty we have in Christ. It sounds good, but is it? Keeping in mind Peter’s admonition that a correct understanding of Paul’s letters requires a solid grounding in the Torah and Tanakh (2 Peter 3:15-16), perhaps we should  look a little further. Although the older Scriptures have plenty to say about circumcision and salvation by grace, we need look no further than the book of Acts.

Acts 16:3-4  Paul wanted him to go with him, and taking him he circumcised him, because of the Jews who were in those places; for they all knew that his father was a Greek.  (4)  And as they passed through the cities, they delivered to them the commandments to keep, the ones that were ordained by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem.

There is no question that Timothy voluntarily submitted to this circumcision. He was a grown man, after all. So Paul, who said that circumcision equaled damnation, circumcised Timothy? No! Paul, who said that you cannot be saved by circumcision, circumcised Timothy! In several places in Acts, Luke writes that the great controversy that followed Paul was whether or not a person must be circumcised and keep the whole Law of Moses in order to be saved (E.g. Acts 15:1). The Torah, the Tanakh, the teachings of Yeshua…all of these things stand against such a teaching. The issue was never about whether or not circumcision is a good or bad thing. It was always about salvation. The commandments “ordained by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem” said nothing about circumcision. In fact, they were specifically given to counter the Pharisaical teaching that a man must be circumcised and keep the whole Law in order to be saved. Yet Paul, before he goes out to spread the word against circumcision, circumcises his traveling companion!

Obviously, Paul was not opposed to circumcision nor to keeping the Law of Moses. However, he was adamantly opposed to keeping the traditions of men (that still to this day are commonly referred to as the Law of Moses or the Torah) and to keeping the Law for salvation. There were two parties fighting for control of the church in Galatia. On the one hand, there were the followers of James and Paul teaching them that salvation is only through faith in the grace of God, and that obedience to God’s laws can be learned over time. On the other hand, there were the Judaizers teaching that everyone must obey the Law first and submit to the authority of the rabbis and the centuries of tradition built up on top of the Law before they could be truly considered “saved.” When Paul wrote, “if you are circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing,” he was writing within the context of this argument. He was saying, “If you join the party of the circumcision and rely on that for your salvation, then the Messiah is wasted on you.”

I am not under the Law, nor is anyone else who has put their trust in God for their eternal salvation. That does not mean that the Law no longer applies to us. It means that we are not condemned by it. We don’t have to worry and stress about getting it perfectly. We can focus on serving God in our daily lives, on loving him and sharing his love with those around us while we use his Torah to help us learn what that really means.

Leviticus 1:1-2  And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.

There are two distinct word plays that I want to talk about. Let’s look at the less obvious one first.

This Torah portion–in fact, this entire book–is named “Vayikra” which means “called” or “summoned”, but there is something missing from the English translation. This isn’t the fault of the translators necessarily because the thing that is missing could not be translated directly. The Hebrew word vayikra in verse one is spelled strangely. Although Hebrew doesn’t use capital letters like we use in English, it does use cases. It has a standard case, an upper case, a lower case, and even an inverted case. In this case, the final letter in vayikra, aleph, is in lower case, almost like a subscript. There is another instance in the Torah where vayikra is spelled strangely: “And God met Balaam.” (Numbers 23:4) This vayikra has no aleph at all. The rabbis say (and the KJV translators seem to have agreed) that this is because vayiker implies a chance encounter while vayikra is a deliberate summoning. The rabbis go on to say that Moses used a small aleph in Leviticus 1:1 because he wanted to de-emphasize the fact that God sought him out from among all his peers to lead Israel to freedom and to deliver the Torah. Balaam’s encounter with God was made inevitable by the path he and Balak had chosen. Moses’ encounter, on the other hand, was pre-ordained. The small aleph is Moses’ way of saying, “Yes, God chose me, but that doesn’t mean I’m better than anyone else.” We are all called. The questions to be answered are, how do we respond to our calling and what are we to do with it?

The second word play is more apparent, although the English translation still obscures it a little. Did you notice in the above paragraph how I used the word “case” so many times in a row that it almost became irritating? The Hebrew scriptures, especially prophecy, do this frequently. It’s a trick God uses to flag a particularly important idea or an idea that isn’t immediately clear in the plain text. The Hebrew words for “called unto”, “bring”, and “offering” all have the same root, kar, which refers to coming near. Putting the Hebrew words in, this passage looks something like this:

Leviticus 1:1-2  And the LORD vayik’ra unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you yik’rib a kar’ban unto the LORD, ye shall yik’rib your kar’ban of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.

To make the sense even more clear in English, “YHWH told Moses to approach him and spoke to him from out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘If anyone of you would approach God with an approaching, you will approach with an approaching from the animals of your herds and of your flocks.’”

So what is the message that is barely hidden here? It is the central theme of the entire book of Leviticus/Vayikra: drawing near to God. Although Leviticus describes a sacrificial system and priesthood that most people today view as obsolete and even barbaric, it also describes the only way that we might be restored to a close relationship with our Creator. Our restoration requires innocent blood to cover (atone for) our sins. (“Why” is another question entirely and might be beyond our understand.) We must first acknowledge our guilt and our inability to approach God on our own merits. Then we must accept the atonement that God has provided for us in his inestimable grace in the person of his Son, the Lamb of God. (Genesis 22:8 and John 1:29) The blood of Yeshua takes away our sins so that when God summons us we may draw near without being destroyed.

As in so many other cases, God has presented us with a choice. He told us to choose between life and death, blessings and cursings. In the Garden he provided the means of our destruction and on Calvary he provided the means of our salvation. We have but to choose and to surrender to the consequences.

What purpose did the crucifixion and resurrection serve?

Among other things, the Crucifixion satisfied the requirement of the Law for the death of the sinner, and the Resurrection established Yeshua’s permanent mastery of death. The Law still requires death for certain offenses, but there is forgiveness apart from mere physical death. Yeshua’s crucifixion opened the door for grace at the final judgment and eternal salvation.

Did they change anything? If so, what, when, and for whom? Was the world a different place after the resurrection than before Christ’s death on the cross? In what way?

There was a change, but it was subtle. Yeshua did not change the way in which anyone is saved from eternal damnation or granted eternal life. Salvation has always been available to anyone who asked and subjected themselves to God’s mercy. No one was ever saved by his own circumcision or obedience to Law, but by the grace of God in providing a substitutionary payment for the sins of all people who have ever lived. Yeshua’s resurrection proved his innocence. He could not be condemned because he never violated a single point of the Law and so could not be held in the grave. Untainted blood acts as a sort of spiritual shield or mask that allows us to approach God and vice versa closer than we could as our natural, fallen selves. His blood erases our sins in the eyes of God and therefore his righteousness appears to the Father as our own if we willingly place ourselves beneath it. But since God exists outside of time and could look through that blood at Abraham and David as well as at you and I, this doesn’t really answer the question.

The world was a different place after Yeshua’s death and resurrection in three important ways.

First, our perspective changed. Abraham knew a redeemer must come and looked forward in faith to that day. We now know that the redeemer has already come, and we look back at that day in faith that his blood is sufficient to cover our sins. The ultimate fulfillment of redemption is yet to come, but the payment has been made in full. An earnest of delivery was given in the form of the Holy Spirit, and we now look forward to the reality.

Second, although God exists outside of time, our spirits do not. Before Yeshua, the Scriptures seem to indicate that the dead went to some place like the underworld common to most ancient mythologies: “Abraham’s bosom” for the faithful and hades for the unfaithful. They could speak and thirst and could sometimes even return to the land of the living. Yeshua changed something in that arrangement, although I won’t pretend to understand exactly what.

Third, Yeshua, who has become a man and the firstborn of the resurrection, can now operate as our high priest in the supreme tabernacle in Heaven. When we accept his kingship and covering of our souls, our obligation is transferred from the Law, which holds us in bondage as lawbreakers, to him, who sets us free by mercy. His priesthood is superior to that of Aaron and his forgiveness supersedes any condemnation we might have under the Law.

Did He die only so that we wouldn’t have to go to Jerusalem every year and offer up dead animals to God?

No. The sacrificing of animals never had anything to do with eternal salvation. They atoned for inadvertent or accidental sins. There has never been an animal sacrifice for deliberate sin. Having said that, I don’t know what affect his death and resurrection has on animal sacrifices. Since they were never intended to save anyone’s soul and there is no altar on which to offer them, it’s not something I’m going to worry about overmuch. However, there are prophecies that appear to indicate there will be animal sacrifices offered up again on an altar in Jerusalem under Yeshua’s personal supervision. If that is a correct understanding, then his death could not possibly have negated all need for sacrifices. Perhaps no sin offerings will be made. I’m not sure.

The patriarchs of old, were they really saved through their faith that Yahweh would send a walking talking Messiah one day thousands of years in the future to walk and talk with their descendants, or were they saved through simple childlike faith that Yahweh would somehow make good on His word that He would redeem all of His people?

Both. They were saved by their faith in God’s mercy that he would give them life despite their sins. The mechanism of that mercy was the Messiah’s death, which some of them knew was necessary. I don’t believe they had to know the precise details of what form that mechanism would take, so long as they trusted in God to provide it. I believe the same is true today.

Did they really know who the Messiah would be or what purpose He would serve?

Some of them, yes. I believe Abraham knew after God provided a sacrifice in place of Isaac. He prophesied of the Messiah when he told Isaac, “God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” (Hebrew for “burnt offering” is olah, which means “an ascending”. It implies something that burns and rises up in smoke, but it could be interpreted as anything that ascends to Heaven.) God actually provided a ram that day, not a lamb. The Lamb of God appeared centuries later, was killed, rose from the dead, and ascended to Heaven.

Christ said “believe on me and you shall be saved.”
How about those who lived and died before Christ?
Did Job appeal to his Maker or to his cousin Abraham’s seed?

Isn’t Abraham’s seed and Job’s Maker one and the same? In order to believe on Christ, no one needs to know the vocalizations that make up his name (or any facsimile thereof) or even to know that he has already come. They only need to know that they are sinners and hopeless in themselves and to trust in (“believe on”) God to provide the means of their salvation.

Another very odd thing about the Scriptures is that they almost always, when properly translated (such as in the KJV, remarkably enough), say that the faith OF Christ shall save us, not our faith IN Christ. Now isn’t that strange?

The limitations of human language. We cannot possibly be really saved by any actions or thoughts of our own. Salvation is provided solely by God based on his own criteria. Fortunately, he has promised that salvation to us based on certain conditions which do not include physical obedience to any law.

And what of Mark 9:24, where the man says “I believe. Help my unbelief.” How does a man need help believing if he is already fully convinced?

I trust and believe, but sometimes I still have doubts.

Romans 7:15-17 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.