Tzav – Once Upon a Week

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Yehuda Bachana.This week we continue to learn about the rules of sacrifices. At first glance, it seems that only the ‘kohanim’ (priests) are being addressed. Some of you might ask why this Torah portion is relevant to us today as believers.

This Torah portion is still very much relevant to us. In addition to our belief that Yeshua is divine, that He is the Messiah and the Son of the living God, we also see Him as the hight priest. Hebrews chapter 8 explains this so well:

This text starts with a declaration: we have a high priest, who sits at the right hand of God. He serves in the Heavenly Holy of Holies. This high priest is our way to reach the gates of heaven and to receive God’s forgiveness, mercy, comfort and hope.

The writer of Hebrews continues by saying that the service of the earthly priests is the shadow of the one in heaven, and that the Tabernacle is the shadow of the heavenly sanctuary. This was the reason that Moses had to study and copy the heavenly Sanctuary and its artifacts, to

This shows that the earthly sanctuary was temporary from the very beginning. Furthermore, Exodus 29 explains that the service of the burnt offering was meant to bring people closer to God, as we read a few weeks ago in the Torah portion ‘Tetzaveh’:

Then, as as a direct result of the nation of Israel drawing closer to God, He promised:

And so, the purpose of all this work and of the services was to bring people closer to God. It was meant to pave the way for Yeshua the Messiah to come and to offer grace and hope to the entire world, to all of humanity.

It is the priestly service and the sacrifices that teach the meaning of sin and sacrifice, as well as how to worship God. The growing understanding of His laws, His Word and His commandments all lead us to the next step and to the real thing: to Yeshua the Messiah, Who takes the sins of the world upon Himself.

The idea that Israel was still waiting for the next stage, for the King and Messiah who will come to redeem us all, is deeply rooted in Judaism: even when the Temple was standing, and the priests were serving in it.

For generations, and according to the measure of justice and according to the Torah, the world deserves to be destroyed along with all its inhabitants, as it happened during the flood, in the days of Noah or with Sodom and Gomorrah. The entire world needs God’s redemption and forgiveness. We need the Hight Priest, the sacrifice and Messiah.

Yeshua is the only one, Who is described as perfect and righteous, without the smallest transgression; nevertheless, He suffered a horrible death that we do not even wish upon our worst enemies. Yet, Paul writes that because of it, He has redeemed us from the “curse of the Torah.”Now, what does the ‘curse of the Torah’ mean?

In the Torah portion ‘Ki-Tavo’ (Deuteronomy 26-29), Moses tells us, that whoever does not keep the Torah is ‘damn and cursed’:

According to this text, our families, whatever we produce and we are all damned and under that curse. Paul is taking this very seriously when he asks us, as well as himself, how we can free our families and ourselves from this situation. His answer is that the solution lies with Messiah, Who bought us with His blood, Who took the curse upon Himself and nailed it to the cross.

Here we see a different view on redemption that is much closer to the original Biblical definition. In the Bible, the common action of the one called a redeemer is usually a pay-off. One person pays the debt of another, and redeems by doing so. The redeemer does not break into a prison, to free the one who owes the debt by force, but rather pays the debt until the last penny.

In our case, our debt is to God Himself, and according to our sages “there is no man in the world who can repay his debt to God”. A sinner deserves death, and as sinners, we all deserve it. The idea of salvation and redemption through the blood of Yeshua is not difficult to understand, because we are used to think in the terms of sacrifice and redemption. For many generations we have used this terminology and practiced it, by means of the tabernacle and the two temple periods.

This entire idea comes down to one person, who is ‘completely righteous from the foundation of the world’. We know that Messiah will rule over the entire world. Yet, how could He rule over all people, from Japan to Argentina, from Jerusalem?

The only possible answer to this question that will satisfy someone who grew up on the Torah and the prophets, is that it will be in a spiritual way. The Messiah will conquer the entire world with His spirit. The Messiah’s conquest will not be the conquest of territories, but – the conquest of people’s hearts.

Our Torah Portion, ‘Tzav’, continues to deal with sacrifices, and the questions rise again: how is this relevant to my life today? How is this relevant to us as believers?

The answer is that sacrifice is relevant in our lives, because we all make sacrifices every day and all the time. We start with the idea of rejecting momentary satisfactions, with sacrificing the moment, with sacrificing the now, in order to get something better in the future.

We work, get a salary and save money for retirement in order to live comfortably in the future, in a time that is not ‘now’. A sacrifice, any sacrifice, has the power to improve the future; and, the greater the sacrifice or investment in education or in career, the more profitable it will be in the future.

As parents and as spouses, we sacrifice a lot for those we love. When we love, we are willing to sacrifice much for it.

And, what about those who love God?

We sacrifice much for God: our time, focus and finances. These are not the sacrifices of living beings; nonetheless, these sacrifices are real as they come from a loving heart.

And God? John 3:16 summarizes the entire New Testament:

Out of His great love for the world, He gave His only son, to give us hope and redemption. Yeshua redeemed me from the punishment that I deserved for all the ‘to do’-commandments that I did not do, and for all the prohibiting commandments that I broke by doing them anyways.

Which sacrifices are required from us today?The answer differs from one person to another. Often it is the most important and precious thing we have.

God asked Abraham for his only son, whom he loved.And what did God sacrifice? His only Son, for the sake of the world, for the sake of humanity.

And what is our sacrifice?

Many soldiers sacrifice their life for their people, for their country. Mothers often sacrifice their career, their self-satisfaction for the sake of the family. My mother was like this, and so is my wife, and I am sure that there are many mothers, who sacrifice for their families. Fathers also sacrifice for their families, because we do everything for our families, for our children, so they will not lack anything.If we stop sacrificing, everything falls apart. When partners stop sacrificing for each other, marriages get destroyed.

When a society loses the concept of sacrifice, it has no future and its days are counted. He, who is not willing to sacrifice the present, has no future.

Now all of this is good and nice, but we are still obligated to offer God a blood sacrifice:

The entire New Testament is based on the solid foundation that Yeshua is the ‘Lamb of God’ who was sacrificed for us. He is our Passover sacrifice and our sacrifice for the Day of Atonement, because what are those feasts without their sacrifices? What is it that gives us atonement: the Day of Atonement or the atoning sacrifice?

In the Temple, the sacrifices were offered again and again, day after day, year after year. These sacrifices reminded us of our sins and the necessity of repentance. Yet, after a while we lost our innocence and purpose. Most of our prophets speak harshly against the institution of sacrifices. It does not mean, that those prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah and others - wanted to cancel the sacrificial offerings.

However, they do speak harshly against the idea that sacrifices and the Temple service can atone for any evil doing, without the real repentance and the change of heart. We cannot bribe God nor buy His forgiveness just by merely offering the ‘expensive or generous enough’.

For example, from the book of Jeremiah we understand that when the moral and religious corruption is too deep, a restart is necessary. Jeremiah says that it is time to ‘Uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow’ (Jeremiah 1:10)

The goal is to start anew, to go back to the original foundation of our faith and morality. Then, instead of destruction, instead of uprooting and braking, will be the time “To build and to plant.”

Our partaking in the Messiah’s sacrifice requires the Word of God to be written on our hearts. The very meaning of the ‘New Covenant’ is that God will enter our hearts. Our responsibility towards the Word of God will not be ‘for show only’, not for the outer appearance, but it will be engraved deeply in our hearts and in our everyday life. This is the requirement of being partakers of Messiah’s sacrifice.

Who is Yeshua for us?He is our Lord and Master!He is our sacrifice, according to the words of the Prophet Isaiah: