Masei – Torah with Joseph

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

Shalom. My name is Joseph Shulam and together with Brad TV we are continuing doing week after week. The Torah portions that are being read in every synagogue around the world. This next Shabbat in all the synagogues around the world they’ll be reading from the book of Numbers chapter thirty three from verse one. All the way to the end of the book of Numbers.

It is the last Torah portion of the book of Numbers. After this, we’ll start with the book of Deuteronomy and I say, we’ll be in the home stretch to finish the year, according to the Jewish calendar.

With the Torah portions and Lord willing we’ll do something else next year. Maybe the portions of the Prophets that accompany the Torah portions every week. So we start from chapter thirty three, verse one, and almost actually the whole chapter thirty three is what’s called the travel log. It is a summary of the stations that, which the children of Israel went through during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness of Sinai.

There is not much that we can glean that is very valuable for us today. Especially very valuable for non-Jews, non Israelis that don’t live in the Middle East and in the land of Israel about all these stations because the refrain is the same. And they traveled from Sukkoth and they stopped in Etham. They traveled from Etham. They stopped in Mattot. They stopped in Mattot.

One after the other, the stations the same formula text appears. Except until we get to chapter thirty three, verse fifty two and down to the rest of the chapter it’s a very strange command and you shall inherit. The inhabitants of the land and you shall destroy all their valuable places their statues and their idols. And you will kill them.

Sounds terrible to the ears and to the the minds of the 20th century Western culture. These people wandered in the wilderness forty years. They were slaves when they left Egypt. Most of those that were born slaves died in the wilderness, except two people. Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh. Caleb in English. Even Moses is not going to cross the Jordan river into the promised land. He dies on Mount mitzvah across the Jordan and a foot of Moses does not step into the promised land. But we have this command that to our 20th century post Hollywood culture sounds terrible.

God wanted to cleanse the land from idolatry so that there will not be any influence on the children of Israel to leave the creator. God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our forefathers and to be led into a spiritual slavery of idolatry which actually they didn’t keep His command. They didn’t destroy the Amalekites. And many years later, the Amalekite, Haman, the Agagite descendant of Agag, the king of Amalek that king Saul spared wanted to wipe out the Jewish people in the world.

You know, I live in a generation that is post World War II. I was born in 1946, a year after the end of World war II, but I was raised by people who actually experienced the Nazi influence in Europe. And not only in Europe, including North Africa, even Egypt with a desire to delete to remove the Jewish people off the face of the earth the way the Psalmist actually predicted thousands of years earlier, that it would happen.

So that’s why God commanded this command. Sadly to say the children of Israel didn’t do it. They didn’t keep God’s command. And therefore, as the text in this chapter says, the Canaanites, the Jebusites the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Canaanites became a snare a thorn on the flesh of Israel. All the way. Well into the Solomonic kingdom several hundred years.

Yes. Sometimes we think that we are smarter than God. We think that we are wiser than God. We think that we are kinder than God, more gracious than God, but God is the God of the whole world.

And every human soul is precious in His sight. Every human being is precious in His sight, but when the cup of iniquity is filled, even the cup of iniquity of Israel is filled, then yes, He punishes harshly.

We are still not over the punishment of exile that was punished on the children of Israel twice. Once in the Babylonian exile that lasted seventy years. They came back. They didn’t learn their lesson. And just a few hundred years later at 70 AD Jerusalem was trampled under the boots of the Roman legions. And the Jews were exiled from this land to return only from the middle of the 19th century.

And we are still in the process of returning and rebuilding this land that God gave us an eternal inheritance to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to the people and the nation of Israel. And in chapter thirty three, verse fifty five the Holy Spirit says, openly, if you don’t this inherit kick out these idolatrous, immoral nations they will be like thorns in your eyes. They will be like spears on your sides. And they will terrorize you on this land that you are dwelling on.

Folks, we’re still there. It’s not over, it’s not over. So that’s chapter thirty three. Chapter thirty four of our Torah portion is wonderful. God says to Moses command the children of Israel and tell them when you come into the land of Canaan, the land that will fall into your hands as an inheritance, in all of its borders from the south to the east, to the west, to the north to all the borders of the land.

And it gives us the borders of the land. This is not a geography lesson. If it was biblical geography, I would get into all the borders, which is a very complicated biblical issue but it’s not a geography lesson. It’s a lesson that is out to teach you about God’s character and about God’s demands from us as His children.

So after He describes the borders of the land essentially from Dan to Beersheba and to the Negev desert and He describes the inheritance of every tribe and the borders of where these tribes are going to settle. After that, the Torah in our portion comes and tells us in chapter thirty five, verse ten tell the children of Israel that when you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you will choose for yourself cities of refuge and whoever murdered by mistake by accident.

Somebody not premeditated by accident. Somebody can run into those cities of refuge and be protected from blood libel from the vengeance that the family of the murdered one. Of the one who died by accident will want to kill you. A soul for a soul, an eye for an eye, a life for a life.

No, there are cities of refuge scattered on both sides of the Jordan, three on each side in which you can run away, be living in those cities of refuge with other people who have run away from mistakes, accidents that they have caused. And when the high priest dies all those supposedly prisoners, not in prison but in the cities of refuge will be released and nobody can touch them.

This is the first time that we have a very, very important principle, which is at the heart of the New Testament. Death of an appointed person by God, like the high priest redeems the sinners that sinned inadvertently by mistake.

Yes, unique law among all the ancient laws of the Middle East, because vengeance, even until today in the Arab society in the Middle East, goes on. There is lots and lots of murders because of family feuds, because of family hurts, because of accidental deaths.

Family feuds that essentially, in the end, lead to murder. That leads to another murder from the other family. And then the other family vengeance to the other family. And it’s a chain of hate, murder, destruction. Unrighteousness. That God saw fit to create a system in which whoever sinned by mistake can survive. Whoever sinned by mistake can live. Whoever sinned by mistake can be forgiven and not allow this chain of reprisals and vengeance.

That is so common until this very day in the Middle Eastern cultures. I think that this city of refuge story from chapter thirty five of Numbers is a fantastic example of three things. One is God’s provision for His children, not only manna from the skies or the quail for in the desert or the land that he promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but His provision for people who are sinners by mistake not on purpose, not premeditatively.

And they can run into the cities of refuge. And when the high priest dies, then everybody’s free and nobody can touch them. What a wonderful demonstration of God’s grace and provision for real justice and righteousness. I am at awe every time I read these texts from the last chapters of the book of Numbers.

One more thing. These six cities of refuge are unique. As far as I know, are unique, except in Greece. In Greece the temples of Artemis, Diana in Latin, in Roman language Artemis, in Greece were cities of refuge of a kind not exactly like the Torah prescribes, but cities of refuge.

But what had to happen is that any man that runs into the Diana’s temple had to give up his manhood so to speak and stayed there for the rest of his life. There was no release. Especially famous in this thing was the temple of Diana in Ephesus which was a huge temple.

Not much has remained of it for archeology because the Ottomans the Turks took it apart and ground. Some of the wonderful marble for lime. Both in Athens, in the temple of Apollo and in Ephesus. And in other places, the Ottomans the Turks didn’t have much appreciation for archeology or for history.

So yes, the cities of refuge are at the very end of the book of Numbers. The next thing that we see in the book of Numbers toward the end of the book of Numbers is the daughters of Zelophehad. Remember that earlier in the book of Numbers there was a man named Zelophehad that the poor guy had only daughter had no sons. And according to God’s law, only the man inherited the land of Canaan that they received by Lot from God and for the rest of their lives.

But this poor man had no sons. He had only daughters and the daughters came to Moses and said, listen, our father had no sons and it’s not fair that we will not inherit our father. Nobody’s going to inherit from our family our father and his land.

Moses said, you know what? There is something in what you say. Let me take it up with the boss. So Moses talks to God and God says, you know what? Moses, these girls are right. This is the first women’s liberation that we have in history. And it’s already from the days of Moses from the 12th century BC. Long before the emancipation of women in the beginning of the 20th century and the right to vote. Political vote.

Yep. God said, you know what? These girls are right. Let them inherit their father on one condition that they take measures that the land doesn’t move from one tribe to the other. They have to only marry men from their own tribe. And that way the land stays as property of the tribe. The way I gave it.

Wonderful. Wonderful provision of justice. Wonderful understanding of God. Wonderful for us to understand that God is not stiff. God is not inflexible. God is hearing our needs. God is caring about our needs. And God, if necessary, is changing the Torah changing the law to accommodate justice and righteousness for the sake of Earth. And for the sake of heaven.

May God have mercy on all of us. Keep reading. And next week we’ll be starting with the book of Deuteronomy. Fascinating book. Controversial book. And something that we can learn so much about God from the book of Deuteronomy. May God bless all of you and have you keep reading from the Torah from chapter thirty three verse one of the book of Numbers to the end of Numbers.

And then from Jeremiah chapter two, verse four and keep on reading from Jeremiah two verse four, until chapter four, verse twenty eight. And from Galatians chapter three twenty six to chapter four of Galatians, verse seven. So these readings they dovetail with each other, they enhance one another. And that’s why it’s important to read from the Torah from the prophets and from the New Testament.

But in Jeremiah, just a few minutes God commands the children of Israel and says to them what have your forefathers found bad in me, evil in me and kind of distanced himself and went after nonsense, after idolatry, instead of following me, the creator, the father of all mankind.

And this is what the people answered to Jeremiah. God, please forgive our nation for the past. And for the present. This is what they said, where is God that brought us out of the land of Egypt that led us through the desert and through the planes, through dry land, a place that no man can inhabit and brought us to this land of plenty to eat its fruit and all the goodness of it.

That’s what the people said. What did they want? What was their complaint? Their complaint is, Hey, we were in the wilderness 40 years. God took care of us. He gave us free bread from heaven the manna every day, fresh and for free. He gave us the quail every day for free. All we had to do is just pick them up clean them up and cook them up. No cost, no supermarket. This is one of the signs of the depravity of mankind.

Without God, without knowing God that depravity of mankind, we want free. We want to get and not to give. We want to receive and not to share. That selfishness that is bred into us from the days of Adam and Eve. From the days of Cain and Abel. That their jealousy killed one another. A brother killed his own brother. That aspect is what Jeremiah and God are fighting in our portion from the prophets.

Yes. That desire to be taken care of by God, without working. And to end this, I’ll ask you this question. Does cow give milk? The answer that most children, teenagers, and adults will answer is sure. Cow gives milk.

No, sir. Cow does not give milk. You have to milk her. You have to work to get the milk from the cow. And the same thing is true in the Torah, and in the Prophets, and in the New Testament.

We are born to work, not to just receive. To produce, not to just take. But that was the complaint of the children of Israel in the days of Jeremiah. God is not taking care of us anymore. We don’t have that manna from the wilderness for free, fresh every morning. No, we don’t.

Praise God and thank him that he gave us the right and the privilege of working and milking the cow and making cheese and butter for us to eat and to enjoy not receive everything free from heaven. God bless us and bless our labor in His kingdom in Yeshua’s name, amen.