Va'era – Once Upon a Week

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Yehuda Bachana.

This week we will start the long process of the Exodus, the historical event that formed our nation and is engraved into our collective memory. We remember the Exodus every week, and in a deeper way we relive it once a year during Passover.

Now, Passover is one of the most important holidays in our Scriptures because it speaks about salvation, redemption, hope, freedom, and the end of oppression.

During the Passover meal we drink four cups of wine. These four cups symbolize and stand for the four stages of salvation from the Egyptian slavery. The stages of salvation are based on the first verses from our Torah portion:

We believe that Yeshua took the third cup of the Passover, the one we drink after the meal, the cup that represents the redemption. And Yeshua said, “This is me. I am the redemption promised to the world.”

The Lord’s Supper is built on Yeshua’s redemption, who took us out of slavery to sin into salvation and freedom.

This wonderful promise, “I will bring you out, rescue, redeem, and take you as my people,” that we just read, the promise we remember every Passover, this amazing promise of God is the foundation of the Lord’s Supper, the foundation for salvation and redemption in our lives.

The Lord’s Supper, what is it? It’s a ritual in which most of the believers in Yeshua participate, Jews and Gentiles alike. Every church or congregation does it slightly different, but it usually consists of a blessing over bread and then over wine. The entire congregation participates in it by eating a piece of bread and drinking some wine or grape juice, somewhat similar to the Shabbat Kiddush.

Today this ritual is seen as Christian because nearly all Christians in some way or another do the Lord’s Supper. But Jews break bread and drink wine every Friday night during Kiddush, or on various special occasions and holidays.

Bread and wine have a long history of holiness already in Genesis. After Abraham rescued Lot, the king of Jerusalem and a priest of God Most High took out bread and wine, as it is written in Genesis:

“Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High.”

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in Qumran, in the Community Rule manuscript, we read about a special ritual of breaking bread and drinking wine. And just to remind you, the Dead Sea Scrolls were written before Christianity.

The Lord’s Supper symbolizes our unity with Yeshua HaMashiach and with each other. The ritual itself is meant to be a reminder and a connection to the Messiah:

Yeshua said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” This memory has to lead us to repentance. We look at Yeshua who was sacrificed in our place. However, the sacrifice is not only an atonement for sin, it causes us to regret and repair our ways, as the prophets harshly criticize people who think that they can sin and afterwards go to the Temple where priests and sacrifices will atone for them.

No, it has to start with repentance, with a meaningful change of our lives towards good and godly.

The Lord’s Supper is a ritual that symbolizes and reminds us of Yeshua’s sacrifice. It must have a central place in the life of the believer, as if we are standing before God to offer a sacrifice.

The idea of bread symbolizing a sacrifice is not shocking for us as Jews, as our Shabbat table symbolizes the sacrificial altar, and the two challah loaves are a symbol for the double sacrifice done in the Temple on Shabbat.

It is customary to spread salt on the challah, following the verse from Leviticus:

Because of this, in every Jewish home you cannot put feet on the table, because the table is like an altar, and the challah bread is a symbol of the sacrifice, salted with salt.

Let’s go back to God’s promise at the beginning of our Torah portion:

The people who originally heard this exciting promise were the children of Israel in the middle of a working day in Egypt. But what happened is that the children of Israel did not listen to Moses and were not touched by the intimacy offered to them by God.

These exciting words of God that touch us today did not reach the hearts of their original audience. This promise did not sow seeds of hope in the Israelites, and the Torah tells us why:

“But they did not listen to Moses, because of the anguish of spirit and harsh labor.”

This text teaches us a valuable lesson, not only about the Exodus, but it is also relevant in parenting, or in our relationships, in marriage, or to those close to us.

When we want to talk to someone, for example to our spouse, we need to know that the other person is emotionally open to hear us and to understand us.

If the person in front of us is tired or hungry, or if he is focused on work or trying to solve another problem, we will be wasting our words and our nerves.

If the child in front of me is hungry, if I’m trying to talk to my son and he is hungry, it is better to make him a sandwich and to hold on for 15 minutes while the food calms him down, and then I can talk to him again.

If the other person in front of us is preoccupied with something else, it is better to wait for an hour or two if we want to get their full attention.

The children of Israel are stressed and frightened. They are hungry and tired. In this state of mind they are not capable of seeing the next step or think about the next stage in their national development, because it is too far beyond their everyday reality.

The question that bothers them is what is happening now. What will I eat tomorrow? How will this day end? Who cares about future promises? Who knows if I’ll even survive till then?

And here I want to ask seriously: how can God not know their reaction? Why does he reveal his plan to Jacob’s sons, to the future children of Israel?

It is because God is also talking to their tomorrow, to their children. The word of God is available for us today. It is meant for us, so we understand that there is always a plan for the future, even if we do not get it at the moment.

God has a plan for today as well, even when we cannot see it. His plan is there. God’s plan of redemption will happen step by step. It is a process, not an instant change. Sometimes this process takes a very long time.

There is a plan for the body of Messiah as well. The day will come and all of Israel will be saved, slowly but surely. We as a body are growing and becoming stronger, and when we will be ready God will remove the veil from the eyes of Israel and they will see. They will see Yeshua their Messiah.

Our Messiah, our life of faith is a process as well. Salvation is a process, usually a long one that continues through our entire lives.

As our faith, along with our knowledge of the Scriptures, the more we know and the more we understand from the word of God, the more our faith grows and becomes stronger.

All of us are asking ourselves what is required for me as a believer, as Yeshua’s disciple. What shall I do? What does God want for me?

The first disciples of the Messiah asked a similar question: what is required from new believers?

The answer given in Acts chapter 15 is referred to new believers from among the nations. The book of Acts tells us of a long discussion and many opinions on what to do with non-Jews who come to faith.

Then the leader of the first congregation, the apostle James, Jacob, concludes the deliberations with a plan. First, do not make it difficult for believers from the nations. When people are coming back to God, we should not put additional demands and rules before them.

We cannot demand from new believers to immediately keep the entire Bible, as the life of faith is a process which takes time.

So the apostles decide on the first step in this process. The idea is to let them use their spiritual energy for repentance. Later there will be enough time to process and understand the word of God.

As the first step in this process, Jacob issues a set of rules that are based on the seven laws of Noah, as Judaism believes in universal laws. And what are they?

Do not worship idols.

Do not curse God.

Do not murder.

Do not commit adultery or sexual immorality.

Do not steal.

Do not eat flesh from a living animal.

Establish a court of justice.

Actually, the New Testament approves the seven laws of Noah acceptable in Judaism, and here in Acts, in chapter 15, we see the earliest witness to this concept of fundamental universal laws that are relevant to everyone.

This is the foundation. As we said, salvation is a long process, but what about the rest of it, the rest of the word of God?

They will learn the rest of the Scriptures step by step, week by week, when the Torah is read publicly, when we discuss and study each portion from the word of God:

Every week the law of Moses, Torah portions, are read publicly in synagogues. Every week they will go and learn step by step.

In our Torah portion, Va’era, we read about the beginning of the ten plagues. And it looks like every commentator is trying to answer the question: why, in order to get the children of Israel out of Egypt, ten plagues were needed? Why not hit Egypt with one especially devastating plague?

The answer given to us by the Torah is:

The reason is simple, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.

And everyone witnessed the great power of God, who rules over everything, who rules over nature and its course, over life and death. And truly there is no one like God in all the earth.

The ultimate proof that this was the purpose of the plagues is the fact that till this very day we study and discuss the Exodus from Egypt.

Three thousand five hundred years later, we still remember the Exodus. God showed his mighty hand and his power, his complete control, not only to the children of the Exodus, but also to us and to our children till the end of days.

Shabbat shalom.