Ki Tisa – Torah with Joseph

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom, my name is Joseph Shulam, and we’re continuing together with Brad TV, the study of the Torah portion that is read in every synagogue on Shabbat. We have arrived to the Torah portion that is called Ki Tisa in Hebrew. And it is a Torah portion that if I translate Ki Tisa from 30:12 of the book of Exodus, it would say, take for me a donation offering.

And we have three kinds of contributions, donations in the Torah, financial donations in the Torah. One is the tithe for the Levites and the priests. Everybody has to give 10% to support the Levites and the priests in Israel. Why? Because the priests did not inherit land. Every tribe received a territory of land that was theirs and was passed as an inheritance to their children, to their children’s children for all generations. And the Levites did not, God was their portion.

That’s the terminology used in the choosing of the Levites and the division of the territories of the tribes in the book of Joshua. But they left Egypt. They received the law in Mount Sinai, and nobody knew how many people were a part of the camp of Israel. There was no census. So God wanted to have a census, but he didn’t want to count heads. The reason he didn’t want to count heads is because he wanted equality between all the children of Israel. That everybody would be worth the exact same in the sight of the census. Young and old, male or female, bound or free, would have the same value in the eyes of God, but also in the eyes of each other.

So, he ordered that everybody in the camp of Israel should give a certain amount of money, not a big amount, in order to have the census. That was done by collecting half a shekel from each soul. Baby or old or male or female, half a shekel. If you’re rich, you couldn’t give more than half a shekel. And if you’re poor, you couldn’t give less than half a shekel. Now, what did they do with these half a shekels of silver? They melted them down and they made the anchors that held the tabernacle pillars in place. Silver is heavy and they melted those half shekels and made the stands in which they inserted the wooden poles that held the tent of the tabernacle in place.

Half Shekel Census

Now this has got great psychological and spiritual implications. And as disciples of Yeshua, disciples of Jesus, we need to learn the principle in this. When you gave your half a shekel and your neighbor who may be richer than you gave the half a shekel, first of all, it creates equality in the community. One person is not worth more than another person. The guy with a PhD is not worth more than a guy that has an elementary school education only. The rich and the poor are equal, each one is worth half a shekel. That has a great psychological and social implication in the community.

Second of all, when you go to worship God in the tabernacle, you feel ownership in the tabernacle because of your half shekel, your identity, your person, is embedded in the silver anchors that held the tabernacle together. You didn’t feel like you’re going to a strange place. You didn’t feel like you’re going to a church building that you have no ownership over it. My half shekel is holding the tabernacle together, together with your half shekel, and together with his or hers, or this old lady’s half shekel. We all have a part in the house of God, an equal part for each one. That is the value of the census.

Not only to know the numbers of the people in each tribe and altogether, but also to have a sense of equality and oneness and ownership in the house of God. I think the principle is very important. It’s very important for churches today, as much as it is for Jewish synagogues.

King David Has Unkosher Census

So, we hear about David’s great sin at the end of his life in 2 Samuel 24, where David is tempted. It’s a very interesting story that appears again in 1 Chronicles, the end of 1 Chronicles. David is tempted by God in one of the texts, and by Satan in a parallel text in Chronicles, to count the people. Joab, his chief of staff, his general, and others of his advisors tell him, “Don’t do it.” Don’t do it.

He insists on doing it. And a plague hits Israel in which David is very repentant and apologetic and willing to pay the price. Instead of the people of Israel paying the price, he’s willing to pay the price with his own life, with his own being, because he counted the people, didn’t collect the half a shekel from the people according to the Torah. So this is how this portion starts. And the name of it is, “Take for me a Donation Offering.” But let me read to you again what it says in the text. I’m reading from Exodus 30:12.

Okay? Here you’ve got it, folks. This half a shekel is for a census to count how many people from 20 years old and up are in Israel. It has many functions, social and military as well, because from 20 years old and on the men had to go to war, they had to be soldiers. And also, each one of the community of Israel had a part in the general sin of the nation of the people.

See, we are a part of a collective, whether you want to or not, whether you like it or not, you’re a part of a whole. And when you sin privately, you need to atone privately for yourself. But when you’re a part of the whole and the whole, let’s say the government, the leadership as a nation sins, you have a part in it. You may not like it. I had nothing to do with that. No you did, because you’re a part of the community, you’re a part of the nation.

You’re a part of the body of Christ, if you wish, in our terminology of today. And therefore, when you give this gift for the tabernacle, the half a shekel, and each one gives the same amount, the text says in verse 15, that this offering to the Lord to make atonement for yourselves... Not yourself. Yourselves, the community. The total is atonement money that the children of Israel should appoint for the service of the tabernacle of meeting, the tent of meeting.

It may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord to make atonement for yourselves for the whole, for the community. Now, this is another very interesting thing that we all have to take into account. We are today divided into denominations. There’s Presbyterians, and Baptists, and Pentecostals, and Methodists. There are thousands of different Christian denominations.

There was only one Baptist church before 1856. But after the Civil War in America, they split into two Baptist churches. The First Baptist Church and the Baptist Church. And then today, there are more than 40 different Baptist denominations that split off of the one that was there in the middle of the 19th century. The Israelites had tribes and the tribes had, each one had their own character, their own territory, their own ancestry, their own collective history, and personal history, tribal history.

And God took them out of Egypt as slaves. Slaves, each one is on his own. He has no collective identity because he doesn’t have personal freedom. And therefore, the collective identity of all of Israel is formed by the building of this tabernacle. People had to give gold and silver voluntarily as they purposed in their heart. Now it’s interesting that when we read the New Testament, there is no tithing commanded on the church in the New Testament, but there is donation, contribution commanded. And the clearest text of that is in 1 Corinthians 16, the first verses.

When you get together on the first day of the week, let each one put aside money and put it into the treasury, in the box. “So that when I come,” Paul says, “I don’t have to chase after every one of you.” And what kind of contribution? As you have purposed in your heart. The exact same words used in chapter 25 of Exodus when they’re collecting all the things for the tabernacle, and in this context as well. It has to come as you’ve purposed in the heart. If you give without your heart, just give money without your heart for another purpose, for another reason to show off, to show that you’re powerful, that you’re rich, to show that you’re magnanimous and generous.

If you give that is not from your heart for the Lord, your contribution is not gonna be a blessing. It’s going to be damaging your relationship with the Lord, and eventually also with the community, because people are not stupid, they’re going to discern why you gave. And the amount is not important, the purpose is important. In this purpose, it’s in order to make a census, know what’s the power of the people of Israel. How many soldiers, how many women, how many children. Each one is worth exactly the same amount, half a shekel.

Silver Shekels Become Base for the Tabernacle

And it also becomes, as we read in our text from verse 17, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

And that’s not with a half a silver shekel. But also, in the continuation, we read that this silver that was collected will be the bases for the tabernacle. And that census reflects on what we call the book of Numbers. Why is it called the book of Numbers? Because the first four chapters of the book of Numbers is giving the report of this census that we read about commanded by God to Moses in the wilderness.

The book of Numbers is called Numbers because of the report of each tribe, how many people they had, how many the Levites had, how they redeemed the Levites with the money of the census. And all of these things are connected with the book of Numbers. What we read here in the book of Exodus is connected to the book of Numbers. Now, another thing that we read in our portion of the text is the making of the incense. In the tabernacle, in the wilderness, like in all the pagan temples in the world, they had to have incense. Why did they have to have incense? If you go to a Greek Orthodox church, you see the priest with the incense thing, blowing smoke, good smelling smoke on the people.

And I don’t know about Catholic churches though, but I know Protestants don’t do it. But incense was a part of the thing, why? Because these tabernacles, they had alters. They had an altar inside, an incense altar, and they had an alter outside that burned flesh. Animals, sheep, goats, cows, bulls, birds. And of course, you know what a grill smells like, right? And it was in the middle of the camp. And there were lots of altars. And the fire on the alter burned most of the hours of the day.

Incense Covers Smell of Burnt Flesh

And so the tabernacle would not smell so good. So the incense was an important part of the worship. Sweet-smelling incense was an important part of the worship. Now, we don’t have that in the New Testament. Why don’t we have it in the New Testament? Because Yeshua, Jesus and his apostles, they went to the temple to worship when they came to Jerusalem. They were not Levites. They went to the temple and the temple staff took care of it. In the synagogues, they didn’t have burnt offerings, alters that offered sacrifices. They had contributions for the poor, for the community, for the sick, for the rabbi. And they didn’t need incense, and that’s why synagogues don’t have incense.

But the temple in Jerusalem and the tabernacle in the wilderness had incense. And there is a lot of text dedicated to how to make the incense, with what materials, with what herbs, with what frankincense and myrrh, and the other things that were used to mix together for this instance. Now, if I interpret the incense for us today, as Jewish disciples of Yeshua in the land of Israel, and for my brothers in Korea and in Asia, and in other parts of the world that will watch Brad TV either on TV or through YouTube or other means. How do I interpret this portion of Ki Tisa for us today?

Our Good Works Are Incense

Well, I’ll tell you. Our good works. Our blessing others. Our taking care of orphans and widows. Our taking care of the poor that need food. That is the sweet-smelling odor from the earth up to the nostrils of our father in heaven. That exactly is where our incense is. Our incense is our good works that bring glory to God, and serve and comfort and bless our fellow men. May God bless all of us and may God give us opportunity to do good. We don’t have census, governments do that now. We don’t have a tabernacle. We don’t have a temple in Jerusalem.

But we do have a heavenly temple in which Yeshua sits at the right hand of God, and intercedes for us before God the Father and before the angels that are sent as messengers to comfort, to encourage, and to bless the people of God. Yes, we don’t have a temple or tabernacle, and we don’t have incense, and we don’t have half a shekel to count how many we are, but we have to be a partner in God’s body. Not only an observer sitting on the pew, and watching others worship and watching others give, and watching others do. We have to be active, and our incense is the good works that we bless each other with. Not bless God, bless each other. That’s where our incense is, that brings a good smell before the nostrils of our Lord in heaven. God bless all of you. Shalom.