KEHILAT NOTES 6/5/04
Transcribed in Cheyenne
Jim:
Illuminating with the Menorah starts this off. Numbers Chap. 8 v. 1:
Ref. Also to a chapter in Exodus.
A significant part of this is the way the lights pointed in to the center.
It’s remarkable that Moshe set up & tore down the Tabernacle in just 7 days.
One of the ways we begin to live Torah is by means of the illumination of the Menorah. Aaron is to light the Menorah every day by the Tabernacle. It was fashioned from one piece of gold. Commentators explain that the 6 outer branches represent 6 branches of knowledge, which include Medicine, Physics, Mathematics, Art, Psychology
Society cannot rest on knowledge alone. We’ve got to be careful we don’t go too far the other way. Unless this information is focused to the center, which symbolizes God, it’s going to be destructive. An example is the pornography sites on the Internet.
Society is now adamant on the right to freely define morality. Before the Sinai experience, God went to all the other nations and asked if they would accept the Torah. Prohibitions against stealing and murder caused them to not accept it, even though every country has laws against these. It’s out of pragmatic considerations. If too many people steal, society can’t function. But the standards can be manipulated around to benefit some more than others.
Do we redefine our sense of right & wrong to satisfy the trend? The Torah says we can’t deviate. It’s not open to rationalization. Too many people today are busy rationalizing Torah. That includes the synagogue here in town. With Torah, being a good person is no longer optional, nor is it subject to economics. This is a reason why many people reject it.
Ref to Aldous Huxley’s essay which connected meaninglessness with liberation. This includes sexual freedom, for example. That’s one of the biggest areas of focus that draws people away from Torah. For sexual freedom, Huxley was willing to throw away his entire morality. Hitler was the same way – he was being liberated from conscience and morality.
Certain truths are absolute. That’s obvious. Students couldn’t find rational reasons against incest or cannibalism on an assignment, but they still knew it was wrong. Through Torah we connect to a moral compass that’s inside us.
There is no Torah without “the way of the land”. We can’t separate what we know about the world from what we know about Torah.
People come up to me and ask, “what’s wrong with me” and I tell them, “you’re not aligned with Torah”.
Used properly, all 7 branches will come together to illuminate our world.
Ref to Maimonides & Bilnah Gaon (?), who wrote on geometry.
Study of Torah illuminates the other 6 branches.
I had not studied geometry in light of Torah, which is probably why I got a D.
Even the Highway Dept. can relate to Torah: “Make straight the highway for the Lord.”
(Story about 1993 birth of Siamese twins – only option was an operation to kill one to save the other. But Rabbi Moshe Feinstein had done a ruling on this in 1977. If only one of the babies could be saved, so it was ok, since one was actually threatening the other. The very existence of Baby B was threatening the existence of Baby A, which gave him the characteristic, however unwitting, of a killer. The story illustrates the power of Torah to illuminate the world.)
At the Temple, light was set up to go out to illuminate the world, the reverse of the usual construction of those types of structures.
Imagine a warrior going out to pillage. On what philosophical basis can he do this? Now, it’s just a matter of might. That’s the way it’s seen initially. The Jews taught different.
The Liberty Bell carries a verse from Leviticus. Even the UN has a verse from Isaiah there.
Lighting the Menorah will be your eternal contribution. It was done only while the Temple was standing – but the truths we get from Torah are eternal. Torah is our outside objective standard against extremism, and it is illuminating the delicate middle path of logic and reason.
Right here right now is just fine – who needs there anyway?
There is a third way, the Way of the Long Pole. In the outer chamber of the sanctuary stood the Menorah. Every morning a priest filled it with olive oil. It was lit in the afternoon. Anybody, including an ordinary layman, could perform the lighting. But only the priest could go in. These two laws created a legal paradox. Technically there are solutions – a layman could use a long pole, or a Cohen could carry it out to be lit.
This says we should aspire to spiritual heights beyond what we can reach. We should not desist from our efforts to reach that place, even though we may not be able to go in the sanctuary. If Yeshua changes that, fine, but even if they rebuilt the Temple only Cohens could go in.
At times this means someone from that higher place reaches down to us. Each and every one of us is a lamplighter. We can carry a long pole. No lamp is too lowly. Torah is my long pole. I can reach out to people in higher or lower places.
The symbolism of the Menorah is so applicable today to all of us.
Not all believers necessarily practice every one of the observances that are part of this system. We can try to do the ones that are applicable to us. We’re at various stages and places and points in time. What allows us the luxury of this rationalization is “they are out of touch with our contemporary situations.” We get that from the church, “we’ve been set free from the Law.” Some will argue that in an age of government inspection, Kosher laws are obsolete. Others say that today we can only determine sexual mores by consensus. Are we truly expected to adhere to this ancient code so out of touch with today’s reality?
Was this only to be given to those poor Jews tramping through the desert back then?
God sees past, present, and future, so obviously the Torah is still good. With God there is no time. What he did at Sinai occurred at the same moment as tonight at Kehilat. California is no greater challenge than Caanan.
Nu 10:33
This would miraculously prepare the ground for their future encampments.
Note how Torah exempted women from prayers & other obligations so they could concentrate on raising children.
They’re discovering that sitting Shiva really is a good therapy for mourning.
Today’s women are embracing the Mikvah as a beautiful spiritual experience. Women even have to remove nail polish, makeup, jewelry. This is to be as close to God as possible.
Celebrities studying Kabbalah just validates all this. It’s popping up without direction or leadership. We wouldn’t have a prayer if we didn’t have Michael Detweiler as our leader.
Fads & fashions come & go, but Torah stays. If anything, the mitzvahs are ahead of the times.
Our challenge is to relate Torah to our own realities. It’s an attainable goal. It might have to be done with a long pole, but it can be done.
The Jewish people were conditioned and brought into a shape that ultimately they were able to receive Torah. It took 433 years of slavery, 50-day march across the desert, deprivation – all were working towards that one end. God couldn’t just rain down Torah on them. They had to be prepared. We do the same thing when you thank God for the opportunity to study. We prepare ourselves to study. They’re important to remember. God doesn’t just grab anybody and make them a Torah scholar. It happens with years of preparation, study, and desire. It’s like Marine boot camp.
At Mt. Sinai they made a bunch of wrong decisions. On a couple of occasions they bit the pickle pretty bad.
What point were the Hebrew people at when they received Torah? He waited until it was his time, according to their readiness. Most of what happens to us is about timing. The blessing of Torah is not subject to our guidelines. It’s His timing, His way.
When told of a man who acquired great wealth, a rabbi asked, “has he also acquired the days in which to spend it?”
After receiving Torah the Hebrews wandered for 40 years in the desert. Their clothes & shoes did not wear out, and their food was 100% utilized. They didn’t even have to deal with waste.
Nu. 11:5
A complaint, “Remember the fish we ate in Egypt”.
Manna – looked like a small brown seed. It came down at night. It produced no waste. This is the ideal way to eat.
Shortly after the manna started coming down, they received the Torah. For 40 years, they just ate manna and studied Torah.
Midrash sees a direct connection between diet and understanding.
After crossing into Caanan, the manna stopped, and also Torah study become just the specialty of the Levites.
Life is mostly waste. We spend most of our lives doing this & that. (list) Then just those five minutes we’re actually doing something, we screw it up.
We look for faults in ones who love us.
We look for the other side in the most righteous of causes. Even goodness is judged too good to be true.
This is why Torah could have been given to eaters of manna. Anyone else would have wanted to digest it. They would have separated poetically correct parts from the rest etc.
Too many times we don’t really accept the blessings we get.
There is no waste to Torah. It needs to be absorbed in order to work, just like the manna.
Rashi explains that in one important respect, slavery in Egypt was free compared to life in the desert. Manna came with strings attached – Jews were expected to perform the mitzvot. So the use of the word “free” in this complaint also refers to their desire to be free from the mitzvot.
We have to appreciate how appealing slavery can be. Freedom can feel the most enslaving of all, with problems, pressures, decisions etc.
We have contemporary slavery. They space out, they eat without really tasting. If you taste too much of McDonald’s, you don’t really want to eat it. It’s easier to let the taste of the food manipulate you. You eat somebody’s hamburger and you’re floating in the clouds.
The manna tasted however the person desired. It was up to you – it could be tasteless. This is why the Jews preferred real fish – you don’t need awareness, just an open mouth. Food is symptomatic of how you treat everything else.
We’re constantly looking for stimuli, like movies, drugs, Disneyland – they’re all about letting outside forces take control of your mind. A key to mental health is never wanting more than you need.
They may be a slave to status & security waiting for a time that may never come. They’re not enjoying the moment we have now. There are reasons to be happy about the time right now.
The Jews in the deserts lived with a stark reality – there is nothing you can do about tomorrow until it comes. Real freedom is living for today and not worrying about tomorrow.
It always is nice to know you have something for tomorrow, but then you have to work harder to protect it.
Ask yourself, “do I spend any significant portion of the day enjoying the fruits of my labor?”
Are you working for the future instead of getting the most out of the present?
Nu. 10:35-36
These verses are set off by two upside-down Nuns. There is a reason for this.
[some confusion about the offsets between 3 incidents of the people sinning]
[some account of the rebuke given by Joseph to his brothers]
Elijah found himself mocked by an ignorant boor who did not even know the alephbet. The ignorant man was not afraid because he had not been given the intelligence, so he was excused. Elijah asked the man what he did for a living, and he gave a big description of how he did fishing. Elijah said, "You don’t have wisdom for Torah, but you have all this wisdom for fishing?”
If you want to find out what a good excuse maker you are, just listen to your excuses.
Rev. Tom:
An excuse is just like a hot dog – a lie covered with a little skin.
Jim:
The person who has not attended Shul is not judged the same way as someone who has.
One of the biggest sins was inconsistency. They had stamina to run from Torah, but not to run to Israel.
The letter Nun represents faithfulness and consistency. Inverted represents the opposite.
Moses is subjecting his desires to God’s will in this passage. That’s an easy way to do it.
When calling to the return, this creates a separation between earlier events & the great sin of the spies.