Eager to get started on the next Torah portion? (Parashahs 42 and 43)

If you're eager to get started on the next Torah portion, you can find a synopsis our our website.  This week features another dual parashah:  

Parashah 42: Mattot (Tribes); Numbers 30:1 through 32:42

AND:

Parashah 43: Masa'ei (Stages); Numbers 3:1 through 36:13

To get started, simply click on each of the links above to read our synopses, and then read all of the Torah, Haftarah and Brit Chadasha portions outlined in our articles.

Parashah 42 discusses – among other things - how critical spoken words can be. As a matter of fact, volumes could be written about the very first verse in Numbers 30!

YHWH takes oaths very seriously, especially ones that were made to Him! Today, contracts don't seem to hold any meaning anymore because, many believe contracts were made to be broken and/or re-written to suit a certain purpose. Even many couples who are married in church and pledged to stay together "unto death" demonstrate instead that they didn’t take their oath very seriously, and end up divorced.

Unbeknownst to them, the vows made before YHWH stand, regardless! YHWH doesn't care what the reasoning, whether simple carnal desire or profit of some kind. A contract is a contract.

This parashah covers a WHOLE LOT more, and to read it, please click on the Parashah 42 link, above.

In Parashah 43 we see YHWH prophetically declaring the borders of Israel! As the Book of Numbers nears the end, we find YHWH's people anxiously waiting on the east side of the Yarden (Jordan) as they prepare to leave the Wilderness to enter the Land that he promised their forefathers many years before.

The beginning of this parashah, Numbers 33, is a recap, a summarization of the last 40 years before YHWH's people finally get to possess the Land of Israel! Today, we get to see Moshe taking the opportunity to recount each significant encampment their long and arduous journey toward the Promised Land.

This summarization must have been important to YHWH, who had His people move camps a total of 42 times (starting the count when they left Sukkot, Numbers 33:5, to when they reached the plains of Mo'av across from Yericho, Numbers 33:48). And, by the way, nothing in the Torah is mentioned in vain, and therefore we must pay special attention to those things that are mentioned more than once....

An important detail to grasp in these particular parashahs is that YHWH gave the Land to the Israelites (the offspring of Isaac); not to the Arabs (the offspring of Ishmael who ultimately became the enemy of YHWH: Muslims)!

Click on the link for Parashah 43 above to read all about how YHWH tells His people to not only kill or drive out the people living in the Land, but also their idols and "high places" (places of worship), lest they become infected with false gods. He did not do this because He was a mean God; He did it because (1) He intended for HIS people to inhabit the Land; and (2) He did not want them to fall prey to pagan ways…

IMPORTANT:  Please do not only read our synopses, but the actual Torah portions and the Haftarah and Brit Chadasha portions outlined in our articles.