We are currently on Day 23 of the Omer counting which is three weeks and two days. The 49 days of Counting is a time to reflect upon different aspects and implications for our lives regarding the salvation that Yeshua won for us at Pesach nearly 2000 years ago and our responses to them in the period between Pesach and Shavuot.
At Shavuot, God gave the Israelites the Law at Mt. Sinai and it was at Shavuot when Yeshua’s disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit as written in Acts 2. It is a time when we count up not down because our life as believers always move forwards, never backwards. So this 50-day period is a very focused time of anticipation and thankfulness for all we have received from God, past and present, and for all that the future holds for us.
There are two verses related to Shavuot in the Book of Ezek:1:26 that describe the throne room of God linking the 2 Tablets of stone given to Moses on the Mountain when he received the 10 commandments.
“26 Above the firmament was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it.”
The description of the Throne of God is likened to beautiful sapphire stones. Due to the juxtaposition of the blue sapphire throne and God writing the Ten Commandments on “stone” with His own finger in Ex. 24, the Ten Commandments according to Jewish tradition were written on sapphire stones.
When He had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, God gave Moses the two tablets of stone, written by the finger of God. Dt.9:15: “So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.”
There is no such thing as destruction in Heaven. Everything is life. Death does not exist. The origin of the Ten Commandments is the Word of God that came from Heaven. The sapphire, like the pavement and Throne of God is just like that – permanent and eternal. The Hebrew word “Brit” is translated “covenant” but it literally means “to cut.” Adonai cut the stones of the covenant and wrote upon them with His own finger.
There are several midrashes regarding the Ten Commandments. One is that the tablets had been bored all the way through, allowing some letters to miraculously float in place. Another midrash states that no matter which side of the tablet you looked at, it read correctly. (Truth is truth, and cannot be distorted.) And, yet another says that the Tablets carried their own weight, enabling Moses to bring them down the mountain with ease. These interpretations, though interesting neglect to include the most important thing of all: that Yeshua is the “Rock of our Salvation” and without Him everything else is meaningless. He is the cornerstone, the essential, unmovable foundation of our faith and the standard by which the entire structure of our lives are built.
Yeshua sent His fire at Shavuot which broke the stranglehold of tradition. Some people were released to serve in His kingdom but others remained behind and became the ashes of a legalistic Levitical system. The fire of God loosened a force that changed the course of history. Those who welcome the fire of God into the their lives embrace His unique purposes for us. God desires to dwell in close intimacy with us but it takes His fire to accomplish it. Many are called but few are chosen because few choose this pathway of sacrifice although it’s the greatest investment we can make in life.
Those who truly love Him are not fearful of being destroyed by the fire, but allow Him to purify, correct and cleanse from every hindrance and stumbling. God’s fire produces first love which is a bridal identifier of those who truly belong to Him. The Talmud (Gen R 32:3) describes it like a potter who does not test cracked vessels, for he need only knock upon them once and they break; but instead tests sound vessels who he can knock many times without them breaking.
Scripture states that every true believer will one day stand before the ‘Bema Seat’ of judgment (1Cor.3:12-15) to receive their eternal reward according to their faithfulness of what He entrusted to them in their earthly life. The concept of the ‘Bema Seat’ originated from the ancient Olympics. A judge would sit on a chair at the finish line known as the ‘Bema Seat.’ It was his responsibility to determine what position the runners came in and then distribute the appropriate rewards.
One may argue that anything exceeding the eternal life that God offers every believer through Yeshua is best described as the cream topping. While this contains some truth it neglects to fully acknowledge the heart response of a believer who loves God beyond human boundaries – beyond wholehearted – through intent. It is something that blesses Him through understanding that the most one can ever give Him is the least He deserves. May God give us the grace to run our race well to reach the finishing line at breakneck speed rather than stumbling across the finishing line backwards that we may receive the applause of Heaven on that day as “more than conquerors” who embraced the fire of God rather than rejecting it for something second best.
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Parasha Acherei Mot/Kedoshim (Holy People) Lev.19:1- 20:27; 1Sam 20:18-42
By Raphael ben Levi
The Hebrew word “kadosh,” meaning “holy” speaks of someone or something that is set apart. The priests were set apart from the rest of the Israelite nation and had no share in the land because the Lord was their inheritance. (“Whom do I have in Heaven..?) Their whole sphere of focus was the Tabernacle/Temple, the place where the Shekinah glory resided. So the priests lived in the very epicentre of the Divine Presence and as God’s ministers kept themselves pure as “Kedoshim” (Holy ones).
Until now, holiness was a special feature that separated a priest from the remaining Israelites. But now holiness becomes an expectation for the entire nation. (Lev.9:1-2) “…the Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”
Likewise, every disciple of Yeshua is commanded to be holy: distinctive, set apart, and held to a higher standard. It is a central feature for our walk with God that holds profound implications and consequences for our present and future destiny.
Until now, the Book of Leviticus has been centred around the theme of sacrifice, purity, the Mishkan (Tabernacle), and the Priesthood. Things were focused around a holy place, holy offerings, and a holy people, with Aaron and his descendants who were their custodians. But suddenly in the beginning of Lev.ch.19 we see a paradigm shift where the focus is broadened. This is the first and the only instance in Leviticus that such an inclusive command is found where the entire nation is explicitly commanded to be holy.
Holiness is defined in a manner that doesn’t differentiate between the secular and the sacred – from the mundane such as instructions how to make clothes and plant a field; how justice should be administered, how workers are paid and business conducted – to things that focus upon the weak and vulnerable: the deaf, the blind, the elderly, and the stranger who were to be given special protection.
Everything in life was to be an expression of walking in a right relationship with God that was imbued within the the character of holiness. Unsurprisingly, Yeshua criticised the religious hierarchy who had a form of religion that had deteriorated into legalism and left behind the true essence of spirituality. Good theology alone cannot keep us on the right path. The fruit of our lives is clearly articulated in Scripture that reveals a faith undergirded by a living relationship with a living God.
This is why at this stage of Israel’s history, every person was called to holiness with a greater accountability than the they had previously held. And it’s no different for us. 1Pet.1:14-16 emphasises the importance of allowing God to shape us instead of being shaped by the things which characterised our lives before we became believers. We are called to pursue a holy life in everything, as the Word of God instructs: “Kedoshim you shall be, for I am kadosh.”
Holiness contains its own intrinsic reward but Yeshua promises more: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God,” and Heb 12:14 states that “…without holiness no one will see the Lord”. To be pure in heart means:
- To love God above all else
- To seek His will over our own
- To repent when we sin, rather than to ignore or attempt to conceal it
- To forgive others as God forgives us
To love as Yeshua loves us is to see things through His eyes. Wealth or status lose their attraction —what matters most is a heart transformed by His love.
Someone who is pure turns away from anything that would cause them to compromise their relationship with God. Our thoughts, motives and desires become focused and transparent.
The apostle Paul considered himself to be the ‘chief of sinners’ because the closer we grow to God the more we allow His searchlight to expose the smallest things which can mar our relationship with Him. This keeps us alert to the deceptions and distractions of Satan’s playground of delights which beckon enticingly to those blinded by its allurements.
All our words and actions begin with a thought that germinates and grows according to the measure it is nurtured. May each one of us make a good declaration that embraces godliness 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.
To be holy is to be set apart from this world and stand out and be different. The Sages have said that a “mamzer talmid chacham,” a Torah scholar of illegitimate birth, is greater than an “am ha’aretz Kohen Gadol,” an ignorant High Priest. What are they saying? – that to walk in obedience and reverence to the Word of God is infinitely greater than simply masquerading.
Scripture has another word used throughout the Tanakh in relation to the priest – the verb “Badal” meaning to divide, set apart, separate, and distinguish. As believers, we who serve Him as priests are called to differentiate between what is unclean and clean” (Lev.11:47): to embrace one and forsake the other.
God has equipped us with the Divine discernment to filter through everything that is fake, and preserve us from Satan’s many forms of deceptions. There is one other place in Scripture where “badal “ is used that occurs 5 times in the story of creation. God separated light and dark, day and night, upper and lower waters and for the next three days placed in each domain appropriate objects or life-forms. God fashioned order out of chaos and as His last act of creation, He made man after His “image and likeness.”
God breathed His “neshima” into Adam and Eve and created them to participate in the unfathomable depths of His love immersed in holiness. Our pursuit of holiness is linked to the vision of creation that we may likewise imbue God’s work of love that will touch every life we surround (Lev.19:18).
Satan will always seek to distract us from this, but God desires to use the raw material and transform us into everything He has created us to be. Never forget that we contain unlimited potential because we serve an unlimited God!
The Rabbi DovBer of Mezheritch once encountered a weeping child. “Why are you crying?” he asked. The child replied that he and a friend had been playing “hide and seek,” but his friend had run off to some amusement, leaving him curled up in his hiding place, waiting in vain to be searched out. Rabbi Dov Ber lifted his eyes to heaven and cried out to God: “You, too, have hidden Your face from us only because You want us to seek You. But Your children have tired of the game and have run off…”
In these perilous times, amid the increasing polarisation between righteousness and ungodliness, who has never been tempted to run away from God instead of running into His arms; to seek Him above all things and discover that He alone can provide us with shelter from the fierce storm?
When everything is spiralling out of control, know that God is always in control. When everything in life seems to be disintegrating into a million fragments, know that God is already busy forming the pieces together again into a beautiful mosaic. When we face extremity, God sees it as an opportunity to create something extraordinary in our lives that will lead to abundance. But let us never tire of the ‘game’ and run away into the shadows, running away from His love rather than running into them. “Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.” (Isa. 55:6)
Our lives will slowly stagnate should we ever refuse to allow God access. The avoidance strategies are almost endless. People say, It wasn’t a mistake. Or, given the circumstances, it was the best that could have been done. Or it was a small mistake. Or it was unavoidable given what we knew at the time. Or someone else was to blame. We were given the wrong facts. We were faultily advised. So people bluff it out, or engage in denial, or see themselves as victims. We have an almost infinite capacity for interpreting the facts to vindicate ourselves. The first Jew to admit he made a mistake was Judah, who had wrongly accused Tamar of sexual misconduct, and then, realising he had been wrong, said, “She is more righteous than I” (Gen. 38:26).
There is a parable of a person who is standing in darkness. When he starts out to walk, he meets with a stone and stumbles over it; he meets with a drain and falls into it, striking his face against the ground. Why does he do this? Because he has no lamp in his hand. But those who live in close relationship with God may be standing in darkness yet carry a lamp in their hands. When they see a stone they do not stumble over it, or see a drain they will not fall into it.
Yeshua is “a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.” (Ps.119:105) This keeps us fully dependant upon Him. But even should we take our eyes off Him and find ourselves examining our bruises, don’t forget that Yeshua always seeks to rekindle our lamps. Even when we are faithless He remains faithful!
Pursuing holiness is not for the timid! In the Talmud is written something profound: “There is not a single bird more persecuted than the dove yet God has chosen her to be offered upon the altar. The bull is hunted by the lion, the sheep by the wolf, and the goat by the tiger.’ God said: ‘Bring me a sacrifice, not from them that persecute, but from them that are persecuted.”
What is that sacrifice? It is the cost of walking in the footsteps of Yeshua and choosing Him above all things! We should never allow anyone to provide us with escape clauses. As the psalmist writes, ”Doing Your will , My God, is my joy; Your Word is in my inmost being” Ps.40:9. This is what it means to follow in His footsteps – or to “see” God. The level and scope of David’s overwhelming wholehearted love even surprised God in the sense that it gained His rapt attention even when in his impetuosity David made several poor choices and fell headlong into sin. This should certainly be an object lesson for those who treat sin lightly, but it also illustrates how God views our imperfections with Divine compassion, mercy and ready forgiveness when we have run out of escape clauses.
For example, David’s desire above everything was to walk in intimacy with God, so that even when he fell from grace, he allowed no obstacle to prevent him from clawing his way back into God’s presence and favour.
God desires to transform our lives into an overflowing abundance and discover His infinite treasures far exceeding everything else the world can offer. May He give us the courage and motivation to walk in His pathway resolutely and discover the overwhelming treasure of treasures through the way of holiness.
Currently we are on a journey but soon we will arrive in a twinkling of an eye when we will see Him face to face in all His glory! This certainty inspires us to walk faithfully and love deeply. The Aramaic equivalent word for agape love is ‘hooba’ which literally means ‘to set on fire.’ It provides us with the sense of a ‘burning love’ that consumes every vestige of unholiness.
For nearly two millennia, believers have patiently awaited Messiah’s return with great yearning and anticipation. When that moment finally arrives, may He find us ‘occupying our time’ with ‘hooba’ love in the spirit of holiness that we may showcase the riches of His unfathomable ways stamped upon us with the indelible mark of His fingerprints!
May He give us the grace to run our race well that we reach the finishing line at breakneck speed rather than stumbling across the finishing line backwards.
My desire is that each one of us will receive applause from Heaven on that day mixed with the heavenly song blended with the words of commendation from Yeshua our Lord and King whose eyes of love penetrate our own 7yh b/c: “‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord!’
