TorahParsha

What God Stands On

for Parshat Naso

 

The Sotah is the woman whose husband suspects her of straying. She enters a ceremony of drinking water filled with dust from the ground of the Mishkan, the Tent of God’s presence. When the ordeal is over and the Sotah is proven innocent, the text says, this woman goes on to give birth.  

The husband and wife reunite by way of the ground that God’s presence rests upon.

And so God’s presence rests on our coming back together.

 

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Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com 

Progress

for Parshat Bamidbar

 

At the building of the Mishkan, the Tent where God will dwell, the people donate silver and gold and cloth and jewels. But they offer more than the builders need. And the builders say: Let the people stop bringing.

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Later, the Levites will replace the firstborn as the nation’s priests. Each Levite will replace one firstborn son. But the firstborn outnumber the Levites. There will be firstborn left unaccounted for. So God says: let each additional firstborn offer a tribute, in his stead, to the holy work.  

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Before the Mishkan, before God dwells among the people, people are turned away.

Once God dwells among the people, even those turned away are drawn back in.

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The difference between a nation with God and a nation that does not yet have God lies in how it deals with they who are left as the world goes on.

 

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Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

When You Have Self-Doubt

for Parshat BeChukotai

 

The book of Leviticus, the book of God’s presence in the Mishkan, closes with the tithing of animals to offer to God. Specifically, Leviticus closes with this law: Whether the animal of the flock you have tithed is desirable or undesirable, is fair or not, it does not matter. Either way, you have selected it. Either way, you may not replace it with another (though if you replace it with another that other, too, becomes holy). Either way, you have begun a processes that will not accept your rejection of what you have achieved.

Perhaps a life of God bears impossible expectations. But the closing  point of Leviticus—the book of God’s presence—says something different. That point says this: if you dwell in God’s system, even if you fall short (and who does not fall short?)—still you arrive at holiness.

 

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Shabbat Shalom,
Abe
www.TorahParsha.com

Plenty

for Parshat Emor

 

God says: Count out seven weeks in the season of harvesting grain. At the end of seven weeks, on Shavuot, sacrifice bread.

And God says: As you harvest your crop, leave grain aside for the poor.

 

Counting the days of your harvest, you realize the plenty that you have.

And you realize, too, that this plenty is not yours.

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

What does God think of your life?

for Parshat Acharei Mot 

        

 

i

After he loses two of his sons, Aaron’s family refrains from partaking of a sacrifice—a goat—though they have been commanded to do so.

 

Moses is angry over this. But Aaron says: Such things have befallen me today; would God want me to eat of the sacrifice?

 

 

ii

After the death of Aaron’s two sons, God introduces the day of Yom Kippur—the day of forgiveness, the day that is framed by the sacrifice of goats, by the symbol of Aaron's argument.

 

 

iii

Perhaps we should see these events like this:

 

Aaron thinks: God gives us rules. But God, also, sees us through the lens of our actual life.

 

And God agrees.

 

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

 

Sent from Los Angeles (before Shabbat)

www.TorahParsha.com