Vayakhel – Torah with Joseph

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

Shalom, my name is Joseph Shulam, and I am, together with Brad TV, doing the Torah portions every week, and this week’s Shabbat, we’ll be reading from Exodus Chapter 35, verse 1, and we’ll finish the reading in Exodus 38, verse 20. And again, we are in a situation in which this is the third week that we’re talking about contributions, the tithe to the Levites, and a half-shekel for the census, and now we are in a totally different type of contribution, which is, I would say, if I translate to English, it will be a freewill offering.

And Moses gathers the whole camp of Israel, it says, the whole congregation of the children of Israel, together. Remember there were no microphones, and no speakers, and no amplification of the sound, and if you count that they had 600,000 men, and then you add their wives and you add their children, you’re talking about a very large crowd, and how Moses spoke and they all heard, it takes a miracle.

And I believe that there was a miracle, a miracle of God’s amplification and communication straight to the hearts of these people. So he gathers the children of Israel, and the first thing he tells them is a command, “You shall work six days of the week.”

God Establishes the Seventh Day Rest

This I want to stress. The Sabbath day, the seventh day, is an act of creation. God did it when He created the world, long before there were Israelites, before there were Jews, before there were nations, before there were Gentiles, when there was nobody yet, except Adam and Eve, God established the seventh day as a day of rest, and commanded the children of Israel to rest on the seventh day, but that rest is only worthwhile if you really work six days.

If you don’t work, if you rest six days, the seventh day rest means nothing. Only if you work, and you work hard. We’re talking about people that worked in the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness. Artisans, and we’re gonna see it in this portion of the week, artisans of all kinds, everybody that had a talent, could use his talent for the Lord, for the tabernacle, the tent of meeting that was a reflection of what Moses saw up in the mountain, when he was 40 days and 40 nights in the presence of the Lord on Mount Sinai.

He saw there a pattern of the tabernacle, and then he had to reproduce that tabernacle down here on earth, and we’re going to see in our text over here that everyone that had any talent could use his talent in the building of the tabernacle. That’s a very important principle. But first, let’s talk about the Sabbath day. It says you shall work six days. No, it doesn’t say you may work, it doesn’t say if you want to work, it says you shall work.

Sabbath Is for Those Who Work

Your work shall be done in six days, and the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. It was a serious thing to be in the camp of Israel and to do something on purpose that was against God’s command. Several years ago, in 2010, I was invited by the government of China, of the province of Hubei, to the city of Wuhan. The vice-president of that state of Hubei invited me to come to China, and paid the hotel and paid the ticket, and put me to work.

Bible Was First Communist Book

And we discussed the Bible. She had read the Bible and knew a lot about the Bible, even though she claimed to be an atheist, of course she was a Communist, but she knew the Bible, and when I asked her why she was so interested in the Bible, and she wants me to come to China and teach the Bible in their government-supported seminaries in Nanjing, in other cities in China, and in Hubei province, she said, “Because it was the first communist book.”

I said, “Ah, I’m a Jew, and I know about Karl Marx, my mother was a Communist. How do you say that it was the first communist book? She said, “Well, it’s the first time that it says if you don’t work you don’t eat.” And I laughed, and she laughed, and then she continued to explain to me, the vice-president, Mrs. Yu, of the Hubei province in the government of China, she said, “Look, it’s the first place, as far as I know, in human record, that workers were given a day of rest, and social rights, and privileges, of how much you had a right to expect from them as the boss. You couldn’t do what you want to with these people. They had rights. These rights were given to them in the Bible.”

Bible Gives Rights to People

And we are here in this portion of the week called Vayakhel. “And he gathered them together.” That’s the first words of this text. Moses gathered the children of Israel together, and the first thing he tells them in this public gathering, is, “You shall work six days. It’s expected of you by God to work six days, and on the seventh day, you shall rest.”

And when we read other texts about the Sabbath, “you, and your manservant and your woman servant, or slave, and your animals,” the farm animals, they get a day of rest. Everybody gets a day of rest by God’s decree. The creator of the world decreed that everybody has a right to a day of rest. And if you, on purpose, by design, break that day of rest in public, after being warned, you should be put to death. We have one example in the whole Torah of somebody who defiled the Sabbath day and was put to death; only one.

And in the time of Jesus, in the time of Yeshua the Messiah, in the land of Israel, if the High Court of Israel put to death one person a year, one criminal a year, not for the Sabbath, for anything, it was called deadly, a murderous court. In other words, people observed these laws. In the time of Yeshua, people observed the law. And one time when I was teaching in a seminary in Korea, one of the professors that was a graduate of one of the top schools, universities, in America, said that Jesus sinned. And I asked him, “How did he sin?” He said, “He sinned by breaking the Sabbath.”

We Are Commanded to Save a Life on the Sabbath

I said, “I’m sorry, you’re wrong. It’s not breaking the Sabbath to heal on the Sabbath. It’s a command to heal on the Sabbath. At the hospitals in Israel, even the Orthodox Jewish hospitals that have Orthodox Jewish doctors, they all work on the Sabbath, because it is a... You cannot...” We have the story of the good Samaritan, that you, a person who’s wounded, who is sick, who is in need of medical help, you’re allowed to work, not allowed, you must work to help him, and to heal him, and to help him to survive if he’s in danger of dying, but that’s not breaking the Sabbath.

But if you are a mechanic, and you are working on your car on the Sabbath, or other people’s car on the Sabbath, you’re breaking the Sabbath. If you’re a carpenter, and you’re building a table on the Sabbath, you’re breaking the Sabbath. But other than that, it’s your day, it’s your day to enjoy it. In Isaiah, we find out that the Sabbath is called a delight, a time for you to spend with your wife, with your children, with your family, in play, and in enjoying good food, and in resting, and refreshing your mind. So this command is not harsh, it’s a positive command. You work hard six days, but you deserve, you’re privileged, to rest on the seventh day.

Ancient Codes Predate Torah

We have the code of Hammurabi that is 1800 years ago, goes to 1,000 years before Abraham. We have the Ur-Nammu Code of Law that is even older than the Code of Hammurabi. Yes, there were slaves, there were workers, and they had to work, but they didn’t get the single day that they could do whatever they want to, that they were free from their job and from their enslavement.

No, these ancient Codes of Hammurabi that are much older than the Torah didn’t have that privilege for the worker the Torah had, and that’s why Mrs. Yu, the Vice-President of Hubei at that time, appreciated the Torah, and she said the Magna Carta that gave workers in England, people in England, rights, wouldn’t have been written without the Bible. King John would not have written the Magna Carta if he didn’t believe the Bible.

So here you are, the Sabbath day. The next thing we hear is that you are to bring an offering to the Lord. “Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as an offering to the Lord: gold, silver, bronze, blue, purple, scarlet thread, linen, goat’s hair, skins, badger skins, acacia wood, oil for the lighting of the candelabra.” All these things you can contribute as you have purposed in your heart. Now, in the New Testament, we don’t have tithing for the temple, or for the tabernacle, or for the pastor, or for the church. We don’t have tithing at all.

Tithing is mentioned, that the Pharisees were so stickly about it that they were tithing the herbs from their garden, the mint, and the cumin, and the other herbs. Yeshua was not condemning them, or saying that they tithed bad, but the love of the brethren, the love of their fellow men, they lacked. They cleaned the cup on the outside. No. On the outside, yes, but on the inside, no. Yes, Yeshua was condemning their hypocrisy, their inconsistency.

New Testament Says to Give as Your Heart Leads You

But we do have contributions. Paul writes to the Corinthians in his first letter, Chapter 16, he said, when you gather together on the first day of the week, let each one put money in the treasury, in the box, as he has purposed in his heart. It’s a quotation, a direct quotation, from this text here in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 35, verse 5, a direct quotation from the Torah, commanding the brothers and sisters to put money aside on the first day of the week. When is the first day of the week for the Jews in the time of the apostles?

It’s Saturday night. The end of the Sabbath starts Sunday. And you can see that in Mark 16, if you wish, that Yeshua was crucified, He was in the grave, and the women went at the end of the Sabbath, exactly the same phrase, and the end of the Sabbath, because the stores opened in Jerusalem and they went to buy the herbs to put in the grave, in the Greek, immediately after the Sabbath, translated the first day of the week in the English, which gives the people the impression that it was Sunday morning, but it was not, it was Saturday night. And you see this phrase used in Acts Chapter 20, I think, verse 7, and also in Mark Chapter 16, verse 9, I think.

So as you purpose in the heart. Now, if you give and you didn’t purpose it in the heart, you gave for another reason, to show how good you are, how generous you are, to show that you are giving to the church, to the Lord, then that’s a bad purpose. The only legitimate purpose to give money to the Lord, and for the Lord and His purpose, is only one. You wanna do it from your heart for the use of the saints, for the use of the community, for paying the preacher, the pastor’s salary, for whatever it is that the elders of that community will decide, but it has to come from your heart.

You have to do it because you want to bless the Lord and to bless His children, His community. So this is an interesting thing in this portion of the Torah. And then we see that you could give anything of value, cloth, purple, scarlet, linen, goat’s hair. You could give copper, you could give gold, you could give oil for the candelabra, lighting the candles in the house of the Lord. You could give precious stones.

You Can Work for the Lord on the Sabbath

You could give the work of your hands. Verse 10 of Chapter 35 of the Book of Exodus,

You know how to saw? Come and saw for the Lord. You know how to be a carpenter? Come and be a carpenter for the Lord. You know how to be an electrician? They didn’t have electricity then, but do it for the Lord. Even if it’s your job six days of the week, you can do something for the Lord when you’re not working for your bread and butter.

And any of the talents are welcome in the house of the Lord. Any of the gifts that you have, gifts of the spirit or gifts of the flesh, are welcome for the house of the Lord, because all that you do, according to Romans 12, all that you do with excellence for the Lord is accepted as proper gifts for the house of God and the people of God. The lampstand was made from gold. People had to give that gold. Women had to take out their earrings, like they did to build the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai, with Aaron, they took their jewelry, they gave it for the golden calf, people gave, again, gold for the building of the tabernacle.

Important That People Feel a Part in the Ownership of the Building

They could take their jewelry off and give it to the Lord. And this principle is very important. It’s very important that people feel an ownership for the property, for the building, for the instruments in the Lord’s house. That feeling of ownership, it’s also a feeling of being united with the people who sit on the church pew next to you. They’re not strangers, because you and they gave equally, from your heart, whatever the amount is doesn’t make a difference if it’s from your heart, for the Lord, and His house, and His people.

And that makes you a body, that makes you a family of God’s children, and if you are a family with God’s children, dear brothers and sisters, the presence of the Lord will be with you. The presence of the Lord will be with you, and you’ll feel connected, you’ll feel involved, you’ll feel this is yours, you’re not a stranger in a strange building with a strange preacher or pastor up front and that you are there, only as an observer. No, you are a participant, it’s yours. You have contributed from your handiwork, from your blood work, for the Lord and His house, and for the community of the saints.

Both men are willing, and women, that give from the willingness of their hearts. And verse 22 says this:

That’s a wonderful thing. It’s a wonderful portion of the Torah, in my opinion, from which we can learn so much about giving, and so much about feeling connected in the ownership of God’s house. And it’s lacking, it’s lacking, dear brothers and sisters, in all of Christianity, and especially among our brothers and sisters in the Protestant evangelical churches.

Give of Yourselves

It’s not clear that the people who sit in the pews really feel ownership and partnership in the house of the Lord, for the sake of His kingdom. May God bless all of you. May God give the riches of His Spirit and the gifting of the Spirit to you, to your families, and to your brothers and sisters around you, but above all, take part, feel ownership, give of yourself, of your time, of your talent, of your gold, and of your silver, and of your purple, and of your gifts. Handy talents, like artwork, and sewing, and carpentry, and any kind of talent that God gave you, use it for the Lord, because that is where you amass for yourself treasures that thieves cannot steal, and rust, and moths cannot eat. May God bless you. In Yeshua’s name.