SHALACH L’CHA Num. 13:1 – 15:41. By Raphael ben Levi
This week’s Torah portion opens at a pivotal point in the whole Torah which focuses upon the ‘meraglim’ the 12 Israeli princes who Moses ordered to spy or tour the land. However, I don’t want to focus upon this critical event in Israel’s history, notwithstanding its importance, but rather to reflect upon a small section that comes at the very end of the parasha.
As a type of intro, let me share some words from the 18th-century Jewish sage, Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev who said: “There are two kinds of sorrow and two kinds of joy. When a person broods over his misfortunes when he cowers in a corner and despairs of help—that is a bad kind of sorrow…The other kind of sorrow is the honest grief of a man who knows what he lacks.
The same is true for joy. One who is devoid of inner substance and, in the midst of empty pleasures, neither feels that, nor tries to fill his lack, is a fool. However, a person who is truly joyful is like a man whose house has burned down, who feels his need deep in his soul and begins to build anew. Over every stone that is laid, his heart rejoices.”
Every person has a God-shaped vacuum which cannot be filled by any substitute whatever it may be. What then is this ‘inner substance’ referred to by the sage that will fulfil our craving for true peace and wholeness? Is it something always just out of reach of experiencing its absolute fullness?
Many people are offended by the bold claims of Scripture which clearly states that Yeshua alone is the “the Way, the Truth and the Life. No-one can come to the Father but through Him.” (Jn.14:6)
In life we must all make choices even within the honest grief of a person who recognises what he lacks and reaches out in the right direction for help.
Whenever our ‘house’ has ‘burned down’ and a new beginning beckons we must choose what foundation we will build with? The Bible states that many people choose to do so with ‘wood, hay and stubble’. Yet, the precious elements characterising a person’s life, symbolised metaphorically in Scripture as ‘‘silver, gold and precious jewels,’ can only be forged in the furnace of affliction. The quality of our lives is appropriated through the materials we choose to build with.
Faith in God – trusting Him with all our hearts irrespective of our circumstances – goes beyond good doctrine, theology, ideas, or theological interpretation of Scriptures.
Bibilically, faith is about placing our full trust in God, with a fearless attitude based on His promises and relationship revealed in Scripture. The application of our faith and how effectively we apply it leads nicely into the segment I want to focus upon in this week’s parasha.
It begins with God telling Moses to instruct the Israelites to make fringes on the corners of their garments, outwardly a strange command, but then He makes it very clear: “look at it and recall all the commandments of the Lord and observe them, so that you do not stray after your heart and eyes which in the past have led you to immorality.”
We see how Paul reflects something very similar as a parting word in his letter to the Philippians: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” Phil. 4:8
Yeshua promises those who are ‘pure in heart’ that they will “see” God. (Matt.5:8) The Greek word employed here is “katharos” that has a variety of meanings. It can include a person who is ceremonially and ritually pure through external observances. But it also applies to someone where their purity is established internally through life and conduct in mind and heart as reflected in God’s word.
Our declaration is our intention to pursue God wholeheartedly as we take every thought captive and bring it into conformity with the Messiah (2Cor.10:5) untarnished by the cobwebs and appendages of sin or unbelief.
We gain nothing by passively gazing intently into the eyes of good intentions. The Israelites were commanded to seek the ancient paths of righteousness, yet for the most part, failed to do so for this very reason. There can be no neutrality in the Kingdom of God. So may we showcase the riches of God’s unfathomable ways stamped with the indelible marks of His fingerprints upon our lives!
The mystics of past history referred to this as “practicing the presence of God,” meditating upon His Word and delighting oneself in Him. It will be “…a lamp to one’s feet and a light to one’s path.” (Ps.110:105) Ps.37:4 states, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart!” Paraphrased what he is saying is, “When you delight yourself in the Lord He will fulfil your greatest desire in life which can be nothing greater than to delight yourself in Him!”
And so we come to the tzit-tzit, the fringes of the outer garment, referred to at the end of this parasha that were specifically to remind the Israelites to ‘recall all the commandments of the Law’ – all 613 of them! But what good would that be unless they committed them to memory?
Most believers today neglect to commit any Scripture to memory beyond a small handful. Ps.19:11 states, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” And in v’s 174-175 “I long for your salvation, Lord, and your law gives me delight. Let me live that I may praise you…”
The entire Psalm resonates as a commentary of God’s command to Moses for the Israelites to, “recall all the commandments of the Lord and observe them, so that you do not stray after your heart and eyes which in the past have led you to immorality.”
The Talmud divides all 613 commands into 248, “Thou shalts” and 365, ‘Thou shalt nots.’ Few people would claim to commit all 613 to memory even knowing that a significant number became redundant following the destruction of the 2nd Temple. Interestingly, the human body also has 248 limbs (and organs), that correspond to the 248 ‘thou shalt’ commandments of the Torah, and 365 connecting tissues, veins or sinews, corresponding to the 365 ‘thou shalt nots’ of the Torah.
There is a curious passage in the Talmud stating that whilst Moses gave 613 commands in total to the Israelites, it was clear that these commands might prove too numerous for each person to commit to memory. Later, King David brought them down to just 11 in Ps.15 where he asked a rhetorical question, “Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?” And defines 11things.
Isaiah reduced these to 6 in Is.33:15. Then the prophet Micah (6:8) further reduced them to 3 (“He has shown you o man what is good…To act justly; to love kindness and mercy; to walk humbly with the Lord.”) and the prophet Isaiah again reduced them to 2 (56:1). These 2 (to maintain justice and observe righteousness) were reduced to 1 by the prophet, Amos 5:4 – “to seek the Lord wholeheartedly and live.” However, in case people were trapped into mistakenly thinking that God can only be found through keeping the Law perfectly, the prophet Habakuk said in 2:4, “The just shall live by His faith,” a statement Paul quoted from that led to a spiritual revelation in the 16th century forming the basis of the Protestant Reformation.
Faith is defined in the Book of Hebrews as “the substance of things hoped for and the reality of things not seen,” and follows with a list of a diverse group described as “heroes of faith” who lived their lives in faith, trust and obedience and it was accounted to them as righteousness.
The curious instruction given to the Israelites to wear tzitzit coming at the tail end of this parasha in a short last paragraph, holds such great importance that it became one which became embedded in the Shema, the cornerstone of Jewish faith.
The Israelites were commanded to wear tassels on the four corners of their garments that represented a visible declaration of one’s position concerning righteousness and one’s desire to walk in His pathways in accordance to His revealed word. It was also a visual reminder that they were set apart under the banner of God, choosing to submit to the fear of the Lord rather than the fear of man.
Today, each true believer who shines the love of Yeshua in their lives are like tzit-tzit, ’salt and light’ who are ‘living epistles’ and radiate God’s love shining brightly this dark world. This fulfils the prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah where God said (33:31-33), “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their ]hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
In biblical times, tzit-tzit were part of the hem of a garment that symbolised authority. When David spared Saul’s life in the cave at En Gedi, he cut off the comer of Saul’s robe, symbolically demonstrating that the king’s authority would be cut off. (1Sam.24:20) One thing often overlooked is that the tassels added to the hem were not worn by commoners, but by the nobility or royalty. In the 1st century AD, it was commonly worn by the religious hierarchy and rabbis that included Yeshua.
Even as the colour of the tzit-tzit symbolised royalty, the fabric of the fringed garment stood for priestly holiness. In Deut.22:11 and Lev.19:19, regular Israelites was forbidden to wear a garment combined of wool and linen known as ‘sha’tnez’ because the priestly garments were made of that blend.
Although sha’tnez was a combination of wool and linen, it marked the wearer as being separated for God’s service as a priest unto the Lord. The blue cord was wool and the other thread was linen. Later on, the general population would wear a garment similar to that of the priests when entering the Temple or synagogue.
Mk. 6 relates the story of the woman who was suffering from chronic bleeding who was healed when she touched the hem, or fringed corner of Yeshua’s garment:“Wherever he went, in towns, cities or country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the tzit-zit on his robe, and all who touched it were healed.” (vs’ 25-34)
Tzit-zit reminds the believer that God’s word is as valid today as always and is beautifully revealed in Mal.4:2: “But for you who revere My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings,” The word in Hebrew for ‘wings’ is ‘kn’aphim’ that can also mean ‘fringes’ as with the tzit-zit. The context of this verse refers to life in the Millennium age, but also hints at Messiah Yeshua the “sun of righteousness” who in Him is healing and deliverance and wholeness in body, soul and spirit. And this is again echoed in Ps.17:8 where David prayed, “Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,”
And there is an interesting statement in the Book of Zechariah concerning the Millennium Age where: “In those days [it shall come to pass], that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the kanaph, (wing, corner) of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard [that] Elohim [is] with you.” Zech 8:23.
In Acts 19:11-12 we read something unusual where, “God did extraordinary miracles through Sha’ul. For instance, handkerchiefs and aprons (Tallit) that had touched him were brought to sick people; they would recover from their ailments; and the evil spirits would leave them.”
In Jn.11:44 we learn about a Hebrew custom to wrap the face of the deceased with his prayer shawl, his tallit, with its fringes in its corners: “The man (Lazarus) who had been dead came out, his hands and feet wrapped in strips of linen and his face covered with a cloth (tallit). Yeshua said to them, “Unwrap him, and let him go!”
This same thing was observed with the burial wrapping of Yeshua (Jn. 20:3-7). The Jews wrapped their heads in their prayer shawls because of their belief in the resurrection. In veiling their faces even in death, they showed respect for the resurrecting glory of God. Moses had veiled his face because of the glory of God radiating upon it. (Ex.34:29-35) To be wrapped in one’s prayer shawl, tallit, also showed that even in death, the believer was “hiding under the shadow of the Almighty’s wings.” (Ps.91:1) where there is security and no fear.
There is much rich symbolism contained in the tallit but the emphasis for the early believers was upon the inner condition of the heart. “Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. “ (1Pet.3:3-4)
Outer beauty is subjective but inner beauty can be seen by everyone. Outer beauty is largely beyond our control, inner beauty can be cultivated. Outer beauty changes over time, inner beauty is eternal.
The inner beauty within us is what enables us to become history makers – God with us – Emmanuel. I believe there are moments in each person’s life when one can do something that may seem to be the most insignificant thing ever, yet it is a moment God created you for that can change the course of history. You may shrug your shoulders in unbelief but I would encourage you to trust God to fulfil His unique destiny and calling over your life.
The secret of life is that although I always have to be what I am there are moments I have to be not what I am also; to go beyond the limits we set and enter the realm of the impossible because our God is the God of miracles who transforms impossibilities into realities, failure into stepping stones, water into dry land, and hopelessness into new beginnings.
God has created us to be history makers! All we need is to allow Him to take complete control of our lives and He will enlarge our boundaries!
Most people live in exile to God’s eternal purposes and their vision is downgraded stunted or lost in the mire of lost opportunities. Why settle for being a spiritual garbage collector when you could be stringing pearls for the Kingdom of Heaven? Who knows what God can do through you when you yield your life fully to Him in simple faith and obedience? God has called you to be a history maker!
