Vayelech – 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 have been, and continue to do the weekly Torah readings that are read in every synagogue around the world.

We are approaching the end of this round of Torah readings; they will end just after the Day of Atonement, and during the Feast of Tabernacles, we will start over again - go back to Genesis. But now we are in the shortest Torah portion in the whole Torah. It’s actually only one chapter, chapter 31 of the book of Deuteronomy.

The chapter 32 starts one of the very, very important - especially important for the New Testament and for the believers and for the Apostle Paul, portion of the Torah. In fact, Paul’s complete theology is based on chapter 32 of the book of Deuteronomy. We’ll talk about that next week.

This week we are in chapter 31 from verse one to the end of the chapter to verse 30. The Torah reading starts in a curious way. “And Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel.” What does that mean? Went and spoke? Moses, where did he go? You know, he was living in the camp. He was living in the section of the tribe of Levi because he was Levi like Aaron and the children of Aaron and all the priests. He was a Levi. His father was Levi. His mother was Levi and his brother was Levi. Where did he go? Where did he go, so he could speak these words to all Israel? And we said, these words, start in chapter 31 and ends way at the end of chapter 32. But that’s another portion of reading next week. This week, it’s only chapter 31.

The idea behind the word “went” is that he intended. He didn’t just have a bunch of people sitting around a coffee - there was no coffee then- but sitting in a coffee shop and he’s talking to them; no. He went to the assembly. He went to the leadership of Israel and it was with intention to speak to them and to address all Israel. And he said to them, “I am 120 years old today.”

Wow. I wish I had the date. What day was this? Moses’ birthday? He’s talking to them on his birthday? I don’t know his birthday, and I don’t know anybody else who knows his birthday. Beause the Torah doesn’t say so. And the prophets don’t say so. And the writings don’t say so. And we don’t have any grounds to assume that anybody knows his birthday. But he is saying these things on his birthday. And he is saying them intentionally.

He’s speaking to the leadership of Israel, and he says “I can no longer go out and come in”. This phrase - to go out and come in - is a very interesting phrase. It appears several times in the book of Deuteronomy, when it’s talking about the king and the job of the king. And it appears during the crowning of Kings in the later books of the Bible, and it means to serve. To go out and to come in - it means to serve. It means to take care of. It means to administer these people, to lead them to war, to bring them back from war. That’s what it means. I am now 76 years old. I can identify with Moses, and I can identify with Moses and learn from him; that he appointed in, this chapter, in the next verses, the next generation of leaders before he died and before he was indigent and could not lead anymore.

You know, people think the greatest thing that Moses did is to go up to Mount Sinai and spend 40 days and 40 nights with the Lord and bring down the tablets of the covenant, the 10 commandments, and bring down the Torah from Mount Sinai. No, that’s not the greatest thing that Moses did. The greatest thing that Moses did is that he envisioned the next generation of leadership and prepared that next generation of leadership ahead of time, for years. This is a very important principle. A principle that most of our brothers, both in the Christian community, in the Jewish community, and in the Messianic community, don’t pay much attention.

Joshua was Moses’ servant a long, long time ago. From the book of Exodus, we learned that Joshua was Moses’ servant. Moses is called in the Bible, the slave of the Lord, Ebed Adonai, the slave of the Lord. Joshua is called the servant of Moses. Why is Moses called the slave of the Lord; including also in the first chapter of the book of Joshua? Because Moses was conscripted. He didn’t choose to be the Moses that we know from the Bible. He was forced to be. Okay, maybe gently forced to be.

We have the story in Exodus chapter two and three and four. How God finally convinces Moses to go down to Egypt and tell Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” Moses didn’t want to do it. He had several excuses. One of the excuses was that he could not talk right. But he had other excuses as well. He had lack of self-confidence, after he was a prince of Egypt and killed an Egyptian that was beating up and abusing a Jew. He had to run away from Egypt. He lost his self-confidence and he was willing to become a shepherd. That was abominable in the eyes of the Egyptians - especially the Egyptian nobility But Moses chose to serve Jethro, the father of Zipporah, his wife, as a shepherd.

From way up high, we can see the palaces of Pharaoh. We can visit in Egypt and see some of those palaces that are left behind; learn archaeologically from these palaces. They are magnificent, huge, luxurious, like nothing else in the world in that time. He chose to leave that and to go take the side of his brothers - of his Israelite brothers and became a shepherd of Jethro.

So, he tells them now, “I’m old, I can no longer serve you right. Also, God told me ‘you should not cross over this Jordan’. So I can’t continue being your leader. You are going to cross into the promised land. You are going to enter the land that God gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am not going with you. I can’t serve you anymore. Old. And God forbid me to cross the Jordan, but don’t worry. The Lord, your God himself crosses over before you. He will destroy these nations from before you and you shall dispossess them.”

Let me stop here. One thing that my - my Christian brothers and sisters don’t realize that our relationship with the almighty God, the creator of the universe, is not a relationship of servants and some mythological character, like the Greco-Roman gods, or like the gods of the Canaanites, or like the gods of - of North America, South America, Central America. Where we, as surfs, are obligated to serve the idol - to serve the - the - the mythological pagan characters that form the Pantheon of idolatry in the world.

No. We are in partnership with the creator himself toward the goal that was set before the creation of the world. God already knew what is going to happen before it happens. And before the world happened - before He said, “Let there be light”. And there was light. God had already known the end before the beginning. We have hints of it in the book of Genesis. We have hints of it in the prophets and in the writings, throughout the whole Bible, all the way to the book of Revelation.

So Moses says, “Look, I’m not going with, but God is going with you.” Ah, the boss is going with you. He himself will cross over before you and prepare the way for you. We are in partnership with God. The faithful disciples of Yeshua and the Jewish nation have to see ourself as partners with the creator himself - as partner and a part of the program of the plan from the beginning of the world to the end of the world.

Because our world from the beginning was created finite like a lot of the worlds around us. If you look at the Milky Way, and study the Milky Way, and ask the astronomers about the nature of the stars, you’ve got stars in the Milky Way that are just born. They’re called Novas. They’re full of light and power, and you’ve got black holes - stars that are already dead and they cannot be seen with - even with very powerful telescopes. If they have special telescopes, like the Hubble and the other - the new one that is going out into space now.

Verse three. The Lord your God Himself crosses over before you. And He will prepare the land. He will destroy the nations from before you, you shall dispossess them, and Joshua himself crosses over before you. Just as the Lord has said, here it is. Moses, with this sentence, passes all the authority to take the children of Israel across the Jordan, and to essentially take his place. Take his place as the leader of Israel, God’s people.

Like I said, this is in my opinion, Moses’ great accomplishment - that he prepared Joshua for the years in the wilderness, equipped him both spiritually and intellectually - and I’m sure also physically, to take his place. And he understands that he is not there forever as the leader of Israel, that somebody’s going to inherit his place, inherit the right to distribute God’s good news, God’s provisions, God’s manna, God’s quail, God’s commands to the people of Israel. How gracious.

How gracious this is because when you have change of leadership — especially leadership that has been there now for 80 years — their brothers 80 years. 80 years, Moses has been leader. To relinquish that leadership, to pass it on to a younger person like Joshua without squabble, without internal affairs, without splits is an art — is as an art.

And I can say, praise the Lord that I listened to a Japanese brother by the name of Takeo. Many years ago — 20 years ago — he says, “You start preparing the leadership of Netivyah now.” And that was when Yehuda, Daniel, and other of the leaders of Netivyah were just toddlers. Yep. But they’re the leaders now. And I’m no longer the official leader. I’m in the capacity of an advisor. Only. Gladly. Happily. The weight of - of leadership is no longer on my shoulders.

Joshua himself will cross over before you just as the Lord has said. God promises and God keeps his promises. And he continues - says what the Lord is going to do to the Canaanite and Amorite Kings And uh. how God is going to give them - give the people, Israel, the land to possess it and destroy the idolatrous neighbors that have occupied the land.

Therefore, verse six, you need to be strong and have a lot of courage and no fear. No reason for you to fear, for the Lord your God, He is the one who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you. He’s repeating what is said earlier. And Moses called Joshua and said to him “In the sight of all Israel…”

Ah, I like that very much. The exchange of leadership didn’t happen in a closed room, secretly. The exchange of leadership happens in front of all Israel - in the sight of all Israel. And he says to Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage for you must go with these people, to the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them. And you shall cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, He is the one who goes before you, He will be with you. He will not leave you. He will not forsake you. You do not fear nor be dismayed.”

Look, these verses are not only hinted at in the gospels, but parts of them are quoted in the gospels. We have in the gospels: “I will not leave you nor forsake you. Don’t fear. Don’t be dismayed.” This is almost quoted verbatim more than one time in the New Testament.

And we need to realize that the Torah, from Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, is chapter one of the same book, and the same book continues all the way to Revelation. The fact that Christians have circumcised the Bible and taken out the Old Testament. The Old Testament is not authoritative for Christians. The Old Testament is not something to take seriously for some Christians.

The commandments that God gave, the holidays that God gave to His people. They’re not for you, Christians. You’ve got Christmas. You’ve got, Saint Valentine’s day. You’ve got Halloween. What more do you want? You’ve got Easter, but that’s not the holiday that Yeshua, Jesus, and His apostles and is disciples observed. And that’s not the holidays that they, the New Testament, commands the Christians to observe.

You’ve got 1 Corinthians 5 that says, “Let us therefore celebrate the feast, for Christ is our Passover”. Talking about celebration of the Passover. But, no, the Christians prefer to listen to the church fathers, to the Greco-Roman church fathers that were pagan. Yeah.

All these things are here in this one chapter. And of course, one other thing, Moses is Levi. And it says in verse nine, this very strong statement. “So Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priest, the sons of Levi, who bore the arc of the covenant of the Lord and to all elders of Israel.”

Alright, verse nine. “Moses wrote this law.” Okay. You wanna say this law means only the book of Deuteronomy? I could grant that, although I don’t agree with it. But I could grant that if you insist on it.

But even if you say this law, and if you say only the book of Deuteronomy, the book of Deuteronomy contains almost all the aspects of the Torah law — from Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy. It contains the holidays. It contains the 10 commandments. It contains the laws of torts, of damages, in the book of Deuteronomy. It contains the inheritance of the land, the book of the Deuteronomy. It contains prophetic chapters from which Paul draws most of his theology, like the next Torah portion that we’re gonna do next Shabbat, Ha’azinu.

Yeah. Hear these things. But when it says, Moses wrote the law — I was a student at Hebrew university for many years, had some of the most famous Bible scholars in the Jewish world, maybe in the world altogether. If I give you the names, they were the people that today in most of the universities in the world, they study the books of these people, like Shemaryahu Talmon, Jonas Greenberg, Abby Horovitz, Michael Stone, David Flusser.

These are, these were my teachers, folks. And some of them, in fact, Dr. Alexander was my first teacher. The first class and the first time I sat in a student’s chair at the Hebrew university. An Orthodox Jew stood there. And the first words he said, “Moses did not write the Torah”. Wow. An Orthodox Jew saying that.

But then I went to talk to him and, I asked him, “What do you really believe?” And he said, “Listen, I am an Orthodox Jew, so I believe that Moses wrote the Torah, according to our tradition, but the scientific approach to biblical criticism based on Wellhausen, and these German scholars, says that Moses didn’t write. So, I am supposed to swim in both seas: in the sea of tradition and in the sea of modern biblical scholarship.”

“But what do you really believe?” “I believe Moses wrote the Torah for myself, not as a professional scientist. I believe Moses wrote Torah.” And I believe that Moses wrote Torah also, because that’s what it says here in verse nine in chapter 31. One more thing. The end of chapter 31. Very difficult.

Verse 14 and on - the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, the day’s approach when you must die. Call Joshua, present yourself in the tabernacle of meeting that I may inaugurate him.” In other words, appoint him officially. Moses called Joshua, went and presented themselves to the Tabernacle of Meeting. Now, the Lord appeared at the Tabernacle — pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood above the door of the Tabernacle.

The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you will rest with your fathers. And these people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them. And they will forsake me and break my covenant, which I have made with them. Then my anger shall be aroused against them in that day. I will forsake them. I will hide my face from them and they shall be devoured and many evils and troubles shall befall them. And they will say that in that day ‘have not these evil come upon us because our God is not among us’. And I will surely hide my face in that day.”

And this whole thing of hiding God’s face and revealing God’s face is a key issue all the way to the prophets. And I want to end this text with the reading from the book of Ezekiel chapter 39 because it’s crucial for me and I think for you too, to see how prophetic the Torah is, that tells us what is going to happen before it happens. And we are all witnesses that it happened.

And when I read from chapter 39 of Ezekiel from verse 22 to the end of the chapter, I just pay attention to the phrase, “Hide my face and reveal my face to the children of Israel.” Because this is what we are seeing now from the days of Moses, prophetically announced by God to Moses and Joshua inside the tent of meeting in the Tabernacle.

Until today, we are witnesses of the truthfulness and the power of the gospel and the power of God’s word and above all the power of God — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who created the world from the beginning and to the end to where there will be a new heaven and a new earth in Yeshua’s name.

In Ezekiel chapter 39 from verse 21 to verse 27, “I will set my glory among the nations. All the nations shall see my judgment, which I have executed and my hand, which I have laid on them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord, their God from the day - that day forward. And the Gentiles shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they were unfaithful to me. Therefore, I hide my face from them.”

Back to Deuteronomy. “I gave them into the hands of their enemies, and they fell by the sword.” Historical fact in the 20th century, only 6 million Jews died, but our history is full of it. Couple of thousands of years, “According to their uncleanness. And according to their transgression, I have dealt with them and hidden my face from them. Therefore, [verse 25], thus says the Lord, God. Now I will bring them, the captives of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel.”

Like Paul said, all Israel shall be saved. “and I will be jealous for my holy name after they have born their shame and all their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to me when they dwelt safely in their own land. And no one made them afraid. When I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of their enemy’s lands. And I am hollowed in them in the sight of many nations, then they shall know that I am the Lord, their God who sent them into captivity among the nations, but also brought them back to their land and left none of them captive any longer. And I will not hide my face from them anymore, for I shall have poured out my spirit on the house of Israel”, says the Lord God, amen. And amen.