April 27: Parashah 32: B'har (On Mount); Leviticus 25:1 through 26:2
Parashah 33: B'chukkotai (By my regulations); Leviticus 26:3 through 27:34
May 4 : Parashah 34: B'midbar (In the desert); Numbers 1:1 through 4:20
The God we serve is simply awesome! Every Torah portion (which everyone should read each week) is chock full of Divine Wisdom.
In these particular parashahs, we learn more about YHWH's instructions to Moshe which underscore, in no uncertain terms, man's need for obedience. YHWH made it perfectly clear that life devoid of the understanding of, and obedience to Him will result in sheer hell on earth....
Parashah 32 is all about the following:
Set something right. Restore someone’s property. Give something back. Fix something that was broken. Trust YHWH....It starts out with YHWH discussing with Moshe (Moses) everything from commerce to land, and home and slave ownership. In Leviticus 25:1-13, we can see that YHWH even commands that the land itself is to observe Shabbat rest!
Moving on to Parashah 33, we see that Leviticus 26 and 27, when read in context, reveal the remarkable social pattern our Elohim set up - with the underlying message being: Fair treatment and honesty, with everyone obeying the rules so that everyone is "on the same sheet of music" ... and, more importantly: everything belongs to YHWH! Whenever we borrow from what has been consecrated to Him, it must be returned with with an additional (one-fifth). In this way, the society of our Creator is self-sustaining.
Parashah 34 kicks off the Book of Numbers. The first chapter of Numbers is one most of us would probably rather skip over, because the thought comes to mind: "Who cares how many people there were in each of the tribes and who begat whom? This is boring!"
But, mature believers ultimately come to understand that Numbers, Chapter 1 is extremely important because YHWH is about to announce His Divine "seating chart!"
Remember when you were in school and, on the first day you quickly grabbed the desk next to your best friend, or some cute guy or gal, or some "popular" kid, in hopes that they would notice you and include you in their clique? And then in came the teacher with a seating chart and rearranged everybody - and consequently you had to spend the rest of the year sitting next to the class clown or some "geek"....
Well, this is pretty much what YHWH did to the Israelites. Why? Because it was time for His people to discover exactly who they were and what He wanted them to do! You see, in Egypt they were nothing but slaves, "worker bees" for Pharaoh. They did whatever Pharaoh wanted. Their value was found in what they could produce with their labor. They were stonemasons, bricklayers, shepherds, domestic servants and nannies....whatever the Egyptian taskmasters demanded.
Consequently, in Egypt their sense of identity came not from within or who they were created to be, but from external sources - whatever they could do well enough to keep Pharaoh and his taskmasters satisfied.
For more, please click on the links above! Shabbat shalom!
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