Ex. 21:1–24:18; Num. 28:9 -15 Isa. 66:1-24
By Raphael ben Levi
I would like to begin with a deeply personal word that God made to the Israelites in Ex.19:4 “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself.” We rejoice greatly at the miracle of the Israelite’s deliverance who, as it were, God carried on eagles wings but we can easily miss the implications behind the words of the father-love of God: “…I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself.”
Wherever we may be geographically it is only secondary to walking in intimacy with the Lord – that is what the words “being brought to Myself” implies. It was a life-changing transition from servitude in Egypt to a covenant relationship with the living God. It was an assurance to the Israelites that Abba Father is both our deliverer and protector. Why is this important? A recurring theme in the OT describes Israel’s habit of “forgetting” about God’s provision – not so much outwardly but rather in neglecting to apply them in their lives – the difference to know about God and “knowing” God. Despite God freeing them from plagues (Ex.3:19–20), defending them with supernatural power (Ex.14:21–28), and supporting them with miracles (Ex.15:22–25; 16:13–16), they would frequently ignore them in the face of adversity. When Paul stated His desire to “…know God and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings…” He was making a declaration that compromise in the face of adversity was non-negotiable.
God’s love for Israel was compared to an eagle bearing her young upon her as she soars through the sky. She doesn’t carry her young in her claws like other birds do but the baby eaglets attach themselves to the back of the mother eagle and because of this they are protected. Any arrow from a hunter must pass through the mother eagle before it can touch the eaglets who are perched on her back.
God’s plan for Israel, His special treasure was to be more than a people with a unique place in His eternal purposes, but to experience the fullness of His love and protection that would occur by carefully obeying the terms of His promises reflected in His Word.
The Israelites were set apart from the other nations as holy unto God which until this time in their history has been a work in progress, but God’s eternal plans continue to roll forward unrelenting that will ultimately lead to their full salvation in Messiah Yeshua (Zech 12:10).
The Israelite’s initial response to the words of God’s conditions for blessings was met with genuine enthusiasm! “Everything Adonai has said, we will do!” two Hebrew words; na’aseh v’nishma, literally, “we will do and we will hear” (Ex.24:7). They were so enthusiastic they would probably have agreed to the terms even before knowing what the conditions were!
“We will do and we will hear” not the other way around because na’aseh is an action word motivated by faith and trust. This is the essence of biblical faith as defined in Heb.11:1: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the reality of things not seen” which Paul undergirds as a pre-requisite to possess a living relationship with Yeshua in Rom.1:19, “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, both springing from faith and leading to faith. As it is written and forever remains written, “THE JUST and UPRIGHT SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” (Hab.2:4 “The Just shall live by faith.”) In other words walking by faith is a moment by moment lifestyle rather than a one-off event applied in case of an emergency.
The world has things in reverse – we must always resolutely understand what we are committing ourselves to before moving forward. This may hold weight pragmatically but things don’t always operate that way in the Kingdom of God. Paul wrote that the wisdom of this world is foolishness (absurdity, stupidity) compared to) God. 1Cor.3:19. Let’s trust the Lord with all our hearts and not lean on our own understanding because sometimes our own understanding can be fragile and faulty.
Some people become resigned to obeying God’s laws rather than doing so joyfully and everything becomes repetitive. The entire 176 verses of Ps.119 are devoted to expressing the psalmist’s delight in God’s Torah characterised in the opening two verses: “You’re only truly happy when you walk in total integrity, walking in the light of God’s word. What joy overwhelms everyone who keeps the ways of God, those who seek him as their heart’s passion!”
Obeying God’s laws is a response to our love for Him that overflows with abundance and provides us with a road map which not only blesses ourselves but impacts the lives of others.This is not an easy thing to do… Here is a story of someone who made the good choice to love a stranger.
A young American, living in Japan to study aikido, was sitting one afternoon in a train in the suburbs of Tokyo. The carriage was half empty. There were some mothers with children, and elderly people going shopping.
Then at one of the stations, the doors opened, and a man staggered into the carriage, shouting, drunk, dirty, and aggressive. He started cursing the people, and lunged at a woman holding a baby. The blow hit her and sent her into the lap of an elderly couple. They jumped up and ran to the other end of the carriage. This angered the drunk, who went after them, grabbing a metal pole and trying to wrench it out of its socket. It was a dangerous situation, and the young student readied himself for a fight.
Before he could do so, however, a small, elderly man in his seventies, dressed in a kimono, shouted “Hey” to the drunk in a friendly manner. “Come here and talk to me.” The drunk came over, as if in a trance. “Why should I talk to you?” he said. “What have you been drinking?” asked the old man. “Sake,” he said, “and it’s none of your business!”
“Oh that’s wonderful,” said the old man. “You see, I love sake too. Every night, me and my wife (she’s 76, you know), we warm up a little bottle of sake and take it out into the garden and we sit on an old wooden bench. We watch the sun go down, and we look to see how our persimmon tree is doing. My great-grandfather planted that tree …”
As he continued talking, gradually the drunk’s face began to soften and his fists slowly unclenched. “Yes,” he said, “I love persimmons too.” “And I’m sure,” said the old man, smiling, “you have a wonderful wife.” “No,” replied the drunk. “My wife died.” Gently, he began to sob. “I don’t got no wife. I don’t got no home. I don’t got no job. I’m so ashamed of myself.” Tears rolled down his cheeks.
As the train arrived at the student’s stop and he was leaving the train, he heard the old man sighing sympathetically, “My, my. This is a difficult predicament indeed. Sit down here and tell me about it.” In the last glimpse he saw of them, the drunk was sitting with his head in the old man’s lap. The man was softly stroking his hair. What he had sought to achieve by muscle, the old man had achieved with kind words.”
Loving one’s neighbour can be awkward and inconvenient but it’s a Divine commandment rather than an add-on. People who have suffered pain often respond by inflicting pain on others. The result is violence, sometimes emotional, sometimes physical, at times directed against individuals, or sometimes whole groups and communities. The only genuine, non-violent alternative is to enter into the pain of the other in such a way as to ensure that they have been loved, understood, with their humanity recognised and their dignity affirmed. God commanded us to love our neighbour as ourselves because those who do so become history makers even when it may only be to offer a cup of cold water to another person who is thirsty.
God is searching for broken people who are unreservedly committed to serving Him. In Scripture they are referred to as servants – those with a servant-heart Even Yeshua Himself is spoken of as God’s Servant in Scripture (Isa 53:11). And when He shared with His disciples about friendship in Jn.14 and said, “I no longer call you servants, but friends,” it was staggering because to be a friend of Yeshua means that He trusts us even when we may fail Him; He confides in us because friends share secrets. Friendship is greater than servanthood because a servant serves but a friend lays down his life.
We become a friend of God when we choose to place Him first in our lives. It includes embracing the ‘fellowship of His sufferings’ in quietness and confidence even in the midst of perplexity when everything seems to be crashing around us. Yeshua is available as our friend for those who are hungry for a deeper relationship with Him – they will be celebrated in eternity as those who counted it worth everything to be His friend.
God regards us as if there were no other person in the universe but you and Him! I never had a best friend in my life until I met Yeshua and it took me many years to discover the Divine quality of that friendship, and I am still learning — a friendship wrapped up in His infinite embrace, who cares for the smallest detail of our lives; providing us with the very best whichever way it may be packaged.
Whenever I reflect upon His friendship I am totally ruined and mirror the reality that for me to live is Messiah Yeshua and to die is everlasting gain! It’s all about Him not me – “Amazing grace” in the present tense that saved a wretch like me. Only the unimaginable love of God could have conceived such a thing, piercing the deepest recesses of our souls to redeem that which is unredeemable.
God’s ways are perfect and unique and His ways are not always our ways. Many Jewish people ponder this. Even now post-Holocaust, world Jewry has been searching agonisingly for answers for around 85 years without discovering any comprehensive explanation – but some have – like Bergitta and Rita, Helga, Nevill, Cerina, myself and 200,000 other Jewish believers worldwide.
Did you know that the song “Some day over the rainbow” was written by a Holocaust survivor who described how even above the smoke and stench of burning flesh rising high above the chimneys in Auschwitz was the rainbow of God’s covenant. And out of the ashes of the Holocaust was reborn the nation of Israel – because even when faced with the fiery furnace of death we have a sure hope through Yeshua – and as with the Holocaust, so also with October 7th. There are so many testimonies of Israelis who bear witness to this – Life out of death because He is the resurrection and the Life!
It is the individual tragedies and accumulated events that sometimes keep us from seeing things through the eyes of the Ruach until we encounter those who are suffering for their faith with far greater extremes, such as believers in North Korea. Recently, I heard about a middle aged North Korean believer who was arrested after the police found a Bible in his home. He was terribly beaten in prison, as was learnt from released prisoners who witnessed it. They shared that his face was deformed and he was certain he would die. Somebody asked how Yeshua could be supreme if one of his disciples is tortured so severely? Another person responded, “I’ve known this man for a long time. When he came to faith, he made the decision that one day he would die for Yeshua. Every believer in North Korea has made that choice.” He added, “Every Christian in my country has the spirit of martyrdom in him. If you lose that spirit for one second, you cannot carry the burden of being a follower of Yeshua. My friend knew that one day he could get caught and on that day he had to be steadfast in the faith and loyal to Yeshua . I am convinced he can take the suffering because he constantly reminds himself of the joy that is set before him.”
The North Korean believers reveal Yeshua’s supremacy looking beyond their finite suffering to their eternal reward (Heb.11:26). Yeshua is our Divine treasure and reward (Col 2:3) who He calls us to Himself, to suffer outside the gate and bear the reproach He endured (Heb.13:12-14). The kingdom of dictators like Kim in North Korea is limited in size and time but the Kingdom of God is eternal
In the Talmud is written something very deep: “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.”
Here is a story by way of illustration of someone whose father was a concentration camp survivor. “While he was in Dachau, a Jew who was being taken to his death suddenly flung a small bag at my father. He caught it, thinking it might contain a piece of bread. Upon opening it, however, he was disturbed to discover a pair of tefillin (phylacteries). My father was very frightened because he knew that were he to be caught carrying tefillin, he would be put to death instantly. So he hid the tefillin under his shirt and headed for his bunkhouse.
In the morning, just before the roll call, while still in his bunkhouse, he put on the tefillin. Unexpectedly, a German officer appeared. He ordered him to remove the tefillin and noted the number on my father’s arm.
At roll call, in front of thousands of silent Jews, the officer called out my father’s number and he had no choice but to step forward. The German officer waved the tefillin in the air and said, “Dog! I sentence you to death by public hanging for wearing these.”
My father was placed on a stool and a noose was placed around his neck. Before he was hanged, the officer said in a mocking tone, “Dog, what is your last wish?” “To wear my tefillin one last time,” my father replied.
“The officer was dumbfounded. He handed my father the tefillin. As he put them on, he recited the verse that is said while the tefillin are being wound around the fingers: – “I will betroth you to me forever and I will betroth you to Me with righteousness and with justice and with kindness and with mercy and I will betroth you to me with fidelity, and you shall know God.”
It is hard for us to picture this Jew with a noose around his neck, wearing tefillin on his head and arm – but that was the scene that the entire camp was forced to watch, as they awaited the impending hanging of the Jew who had dared to break the rule against wearing tefillin.
Even women from the adjoining camp were lined up at the barbed wire fence that separated them from the men’s camp, forced to watch this horrible sight. As my father turned to watch the silent crowd, he saw tears in many people’s eyes. Even at that moment, as he was about to be hanged, he was shocked. Jews were crying! How was it possible that they still had tears left to shed? And for a stranger? Where were those tears coming from? Impulsively, in Yiddish, he called out, “Yidden, I am the victor. Don’t you understand, I am the winner!”
The German officer understood Yiddish and was infuriated. He said Tony father, “You dog, you think you are the winner? Hanging is too good for you. You are going to get another kind of death.”
“My father, was taken from the stool and the noose was removed from his neck. He was forced into a squatting position and two huge rocks were placed under his arms. Then he was told that he would be receiving 25 lashes to his head – the head on which he had dared to position his tefillin. The officer told him that if he dropped even one of the rocks, he would be shot immediately. In fact, because this was such an extremely painful form of death, the officer advised him, “Drop the rocks now. You will never survive the 25 lashes to the head. Nobody ever does.” My father’s response was, “No, I won’t give you the pleasure.”
At the 25th lash, he lost consciousness and was left for dead. He was about to be dragged to a pile of corpses, after which he would have been burned in a ditch, when another Jew saw him, shoved him to the side, and covered his head with a rag so people didn’t realise he was alive. Eventually, after he recovered consciousness fully, he crawled to the nearest bunkhouse that was on raised piles and hid under it until he was strong enough to come out under his own power. Two months later he was liberated.
During the hanging and beating episode, a 17-year-old girl had been watching the events from the women’s side of the fence. After liberation, she made her way to my father. She walked over to him and said, “I’ve lost everyone. I don’t want to be alone any more. I saw what you did that day when the officer wanted to hang you. Will you marry me?” My parents walked over to the renowned Klausenberger Rebbe and requested that he perform the marriage ceremony. He wrote out a ketubah [marriage contract] by hand from memory and married the couple. I have that handwritten ketubah in my possession to this day.
And God looked down and smiled and said: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. I am your healer and protector. I will never leave nor forsake you even unto the end of this age.
