The Garden Within | EMOR אֱמֹר - Portion 31

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Teachers of Torah have coined the Hebrew term PaRDeS (פרדס – a word literally meaning “garden” or "orchid") to refer to a four-tiered system of biblical interpretation, which reveals that each word, verse, and story in the Bible could be simultaneously understood on four different levels.  

Through this year-long course, we will explore the very words of God from these levels of the garden.  The name The Garden Within was chosen for this teaching series because it adopts the PaRDeS system of learning and because it delights in the spiritual pleasure through reaching new understandings and being pierced by lightning flashes of the intellect. The pleasure gained, of course, also refers to the nearness we feel to God when learning His Word.

One of the primary goals of The Garden Within is to demonstrate that the “stories” in the Torah are not merely one-time occurrences, temporal incidents undergone by specific individuals long ago. Rather these stories are archetypal in nature, reflecting or representing various physical and spiritual energies ever present in all aspects of reality and within each and every person.  That is, the Torah is deeply personal and speaks directly to each individual reader for where they are in their life.  So, come, take a walk with God in the Garden of the Torah!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Good evening, everyone, Air of Tove. Welcome to the Garden Within as we continue our journey through the Torah. Got uh this week and next week in the book of Leviticus, because uh Leviticus this year is the book of double portions. So we've had two double portions in Leviticus already, and next week uh has a double portion. So we made quick uh quick hay of the book of Leviticus. Uh but uh this evening uh we will be going towards the end of it, and um, but we'll talk about where we're at in it uh after the blessing before the study of Torah. So let's bow our heads. Baruchta'adnai, elo, hey no medihoilam, ashekiti shanobomitsvita, vesevanu le esokhbidivre Torah. Blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with his commandments and has commanded us to be immersed into the words and the matters of Torah. Amen. All right, so where we are at in the Torah is the Torah has its 54 divisions from Genesis through Deuteronomy, and we are in number 31 of those 54 divisions, a portion known as Imor. Uh Emor means to speak. Uh, it is a command to speak. And it covers Leviticus chapter 21, verse 1, and goes through chapter 24 of verse 23. And this, the 31st portion from the Torah, uh, that title Imor comes from the first verse of the portion there in Leviticus 21, verse 1, when it says, Then the Lord said to Moses, speak, Imor to the priest, the sons of Aaron. And then Imur begins with some special laws regarding uh sanctity and propriety, the purity of the priesthood. Leviticus chapter 23 provides an overview of the biblical calendar, uh, the Hebrew calendar, and a listing of the Lord's appointed times. Uh, that is what is known as the Moed or the Moedim, uh, God's appointed times. And again, that that's to be taken quite literally. The Hebrew word for this uh Moed appointment, uh, does it mean like holiday? Does it mean festival? Does it mean feast? Different ways it can get translated into the English Bible. Uh, it literally means appointment. Uh, the exact way you would hear it as like, I need to make an appointment with my doctor, I need to make an appointment to have my car's uh oil changed and so forth. Uh, these are appointments with God. So God has set this calendar uh so that on these dates, these times of years, these are appointments that his people make to connect with him over specific issues. And that doesn't mean uh that you can't connect with him about these things and other parts of the year. You think about it in terms again of a doctor, you know, you can make an appointment to see your doctor for a physical, for a checkup, and so forth. But if you have an emergency, yes, you can go to the ER, yes, you can, you know, go to an urgent care and so forth. The same is with God, but he has definitely set aside these times uh for specific purposes. And so uh this week's portion kind of reviews some of those and we'll talk a little bit about that as we conclude. Um, so that is in a nutshell kind of what Imor is about. And so let's uh dive into the text, and I thought really we'll spend quite most of our time just in that first verse uh of Leviticus 21, verse 1. Uh so let's read it. This will essentially be the FIV translation, the Foster International Version, because I honestly don't know if I found an English translation that's honest enough with you to translate it correctly. Uh, and I don't know why, other than it just sounds odd and they didn't want to deal with it. Um, but here it is, Leviticus 21, verse 1. And the Lord told Moses, Imor, speak to the priests, the descendants of Aaron. Let no priest defile himself, meaning by contact with a dead soul. And that's what most translations won't translate there. They won't translate the word soul, but the word nephesh is there in the Hebrew, uh, which is should raise a that's interesting, is it not? Souls don't die, right? Bodies die. Uh, but so that's already an interesting thing, and we'll talk about that. Uh, but priest defile himself by contact with a dead soul among his people. So, what is it about this? Why are priests not allowed to come into contact with a dead body? Why does the Torah in the literal Hebrew of the text actually refer to a dead person as a dead nephish in the Hebrew, a dead soul? After all, it is the body that dies and not the soul. And so uh this year, in our time going through the Torah, in our walk through the garden and our style, let's approach this verse from a deeper take. And in the process, we're gonna learn what it is about death that makes it unclean, and why it is something that even now we should be aware of when we have come into contact with it. So maybe if you've ever ran through reading the Bible in a year and you've come into Leviticus, or maybe even just when you've heard it read in church or encountered it in a Bible study, and you've seen where this coming into contact with a dead body or coming into contact with death makes a person unclean. Now remember, clean and unclean are not categories of morality. Uh, being unclean doesn't mean you've done something wrong, it doesn't mean you're in a sinful state, has nothing to do with any of that. It's a spiritual state. So have you ever wondered what about death makes someone unclean? What is it? And so we're actually gonna hit at it tonight, uh, at least one aspect of it. And it's a powerful one, and because of that, once we see that, we'll see again how Messiah, especially through his resurrection, uh, provides the great anecdote to uh what the uncleanness of death, or at least one of its uncleanness of death, is for us. All right. So to do this, I want to start with a parable. Uh it's a parable that's found in a book written by uh a rabbi uh Tukinski. Uh, it's in his book called Geshir Hachim. Uh, and this is a parable about twin brothers in the womb. Okay, so here's the parable. Twin brothers, fetuses in their mother's womb. They were enjoying a carefree life. Their world was dark, yet it was warm and protected. These twins were alike in all aspects except for one. One brother was what we will call a believer. He believed in an afterlife. He believed there was a future reality that is was much different than the current miniature universe that he found himself in. The second brother was different. He's what we will call a skeptic. All he knew was the familiar womb of that. All he knew was the familiar world of that womb. Anything besides that he didn't trust, he didn't believe in. Only that which he could feel and sense, only that was real. Anything else was an illusion. Anything else was a figment of the imagination. The skeptic tried to talk some sense into his believer brother. He warned him to be realistic, but to no avail. His naive brother insisted on believing in an extraordinary world that exists after life in the womb, a world that was so immense and fantastic that it was beyond description, that it transcended their wildest dreams. Months passed when the fatal moment arrived. Labor began. The fetuses became aware of tremendous contractions and shifting in their little world. The free thinker recognized, oh boy, here it is, this is it. His short but pleasant life was about to end, and it was all over, and that was going to be the end of it. He felt the forces pressuring him to go down, but he fought against it. He was going to fight against it tooth and nail with everything that he had. He knew that outside of that womb only a cruel death awaited, with no protective sack and no umbilical cord. And suddenly he realized that his naive brother was giving in to the forces around them. His brother was sinking lower. Don't give up, brother, he cried, but his twin took no heed. Where are you, my dear brother? He shuddered as he heard the screams from outside the womb. His poor brother had met his cruel fate. How naive he had been with foolish belief in this bigger, better world beyond the one they currently existed in. And then the skeptic felt uterine muscles pushing him out against his will into the abyss, and he too let out a curling cry. Muzzletov, the doctor screamed. Two healthy baby boys. Raf Cook once said, Death is a false illusion. It's defilement. The thing that makes it unclean is due to its deceptive nature. That's what makes death unclean. It deceives us. And think about all the ways death deceives us even now. Even us who have a Messiah who has overcome death and the grave. Right? We still often think of death as the end, do we not? We still often think as death as something final, do we not? Even though we know better. Death deceives us. Death traps us. Death causes us to doubt. It causes us to doubt a good God. It causes us to doubt an eternal life. It causes us so much pain and anguish. Death controls us. And the enemy uses death to control us. And until the resurrection, it was his greatest weapon against us. And because of that, that is what made it unclean. And that is why the book of Leviticus warns to be careful when you are around it, why touching it makes you unclean, not in a literal and physical way, but in a spiritual way, because it can infect your mind. It can infect your soul and it can infect your emotions and it can twist things and cause you to be depressed and doubting and turn from God. That is its defilement, says Rav Cook. What people call death is in fact really the intensification of life. Because man wallows in pettiness, the Rav says, he pictures this increase of life in a pained black fashion that he instead calls death. The priest and their holiness are able to rise above this falsehood, yet falsehood and deception rule over the world. In order to overcome the illusion of death, the priest was to limit their exposure to it. That's why the priest, time and time again in Leviticus and in the Old Testament, is told to limit his exposure to death. He's not to be around corpses, he's not to touch corpses and so forth. He's to limit his exposure to it so that it doesn't contaminate his soul, his mind, his spirit, his being. They needed to protect themselves from those images that impress the soul with deceiving messages. And so the word soul in that opening verse of the portion does not refer to the soul of the dead person. Because souls don't die. It refers to the soul of the priest. And this is how the verse should therefore be understood. For the sake of the soul, the priest shall not defile himself among his people. For the sake of the priest's soul. He must distance and protect himself from death in all of its illusions. And so it is for you and I who have been called to be priest as well. And of course, in Messiah and through his resurrection, we have the greatest anecdote to the lies and poison that death tries to tell us. Because of Messiah, death has lost its sting, and it most certainly has lost its deceptive mastery over us. But we still must be careful because it is always lurking and always there to tempt us, for it is still unclean. Inspiring light by speaking. So again, the opening words of this week's portion. And the Lord said to Moses, speak, Emor. I want to stop there because I want to just focus in on emor. Again, making use of our time walking through the garden. I want to use this time to look at the verse, and especially just Emur, speak, from the Durash level, right? That homiletical method. The Rambam writes, quote, just as a wise man or woman can be recognized through their wisdom and their character traits, for in these they stand apart from the rest of people, so too they should be recognized by their conduct. The Rambam's intent here is that a person's approach to knowledge must be more than theoretical. It must be more than just what you know. This can sometimes be a temptation when we study the Bible. We can be like, well, just let me know these things. How much can I learn? How much theology can I learn? How many facts can I learn? Which is all important and it's all good, right, and salutary for sure. I've made a career of it. But it's also more than just what you know. It also has to be seen in how you live and how you conduct your life. And so a person's knowledge must shape his or her character, and more importantly, it must influence their actual daily behavior. That's from a biblical perspective, what knowledge really is. And this is where we in many ways don't ever have to really be overly threatened by AI or the internet and those kinds of things, because in the end, it can only give you information. It can never give you real knowledge and real wisdom. That can only come through the Holy Spirit and through you living it out and you doing it and being it and exercising it. That can't be given to you through a machine. There's a difference in information and from a biblical perspective, knowledge and wisdom. And this is what distinguishes a person who just knows a bunch of stuff and someone who is wise. So among the types of conduct that the Rambaum discusses as appropriate for a wise person is one of them he talks about is refined speech. How a person actually speaks every day in their everyday life? Again, that's something that you can't just Google, and again, that's something you can't just get from Chat GPT. How do you actually speak in a conversation? How do you carry on a conversation? How do you talk to people? How do you talk with people? How do you talk about people? Like how do you actually speak? And so uh he continues and he says this a person of wisdom should not shout or shriek while speaking, instead, they should speak gently to all people. They should not judge except judge people favorably and speak of their fellow in with praise, never mentioning anything that would be shameful of them. The wording employed here by the Rambam, judging in a favorable light, this is very reminiscent of Jesus in Matthew chapter 7, where usually it gets taken out of context and quoted out of context, like, judge not, lest ye be judged. That's like a very small part of a sentence and not the complete sentence, right? It's impossible not to judge. Jesus judged, like everybody judges. The bigger context of Matthew 7 is when you judge, judge favorably, right? Don't judge harshly. Don't judge out of context, don't judge with an impure heart, and so forth. Uh, and that's what the Ram Bomb is getting at as well. That when you judge, judge in a favorable light, never mentioning anything shameful. Imply that a child of God may recognize uh implying that a child of God may be able to recognize faults in another, uh, but even so, they will still speak of that person with praise. When speaking of another person and speaking with them privately, they can patiently and gently address questionable conduct, may take up an issue of uh that's maybe needs to be addressed, the so-called, you know, difficult conversation. But when speaking to others and when viewing their fellow in their own mind, they should think and speak favorably of them. This is not only a reflection of an individual's own refinement, but by continually highlighting the other person's positive qualities, they're actually encouraging that expression. And that's really what I want to bring out with this idea when God commands Moses to speak to the children of Israel. What he's actually encouraging him to do by speaking. All right, by speaking, what you speak is actually what you're encouraging, what you're encouraging to be expressed in others. For thought and speech can bring about appreciable things and changes in others and in our world. Because remember, it is by thought and speech that God created the entire heavens and the earth. And so it is with you and I who are image bearers. Our thoughts and our words also create worlds, including the ones we have to live in. Have you ever noticed, questioned, or wondered where you and say some other person essentially are living in the same world, right? Maybe you live in the same family, in the same house, under the same roof, or you work at the same location, under the same boss, essentially have the same job, but you're miserable and they seem happy all the time. And you're like, how in the world is this? You and I are living in the same environment under essentially the same world, and I can hardly bear it. And like you were just like, you know, you know, just ecstatic. Why is that? Because they are living in a different world. They are living in the world that they've created through their thoughts and their words and their actions, just as you are living in the world that you have created with your thoughts and your words and your actions. If you're always speaking negativity, whether it's your own negative thoughts about yourself and negative images about yourself, or speaking negatively about others and negative about where you work and negative about everything, then don't be surprised if you have a negative outlook and a negative experience of those things. That's what you've created, that's your world. But another person can be experiencing the same exact thing. And they could be going, you know, today was a great day at work, right? Look at all the great things we encountered, look at all the things we did today, and you're like, all you can think about is, man, I had to get up early, I had to hit traffic, I had to deal with, you know, Susie, and this person did this, and but while your coworkers going, man, I have the opportunity to do this, and the next thing I had this, and I got to talk to so-and-so. That's why you guys are living in two different worlds. But the same thing also happens in how we talk about other people, right? It can affect that. And so, even think about it as parents, like when we speak over our children. You know, I remember when I first became a parent, one of my mentors told me that because I I think it was when um I was just, we just had our firstborn, we hadn't had any more children or something, and I said something along the lines of like, you know, she's clumsy or she's, you know, she's a klutz or something like that. She's, you know, two or three, just you know, doing what two or three-year-olds do or whatever. And like this this mentor was like, don't ever say that again. And then like they were dead serious, and I could tell they were like dead serious. So it's like, okay, like that's clearly coming from a place of like, you know, you're trying to teach me something. Like, what's that? Why is so serious? And he's like, You're speaking that over your child. Like, you don't want to speak those things over your child. Like, speak other things over your child, like speak blessings over your child, speak good things over your child. Speak of them as being like incredibly talented, intelligent, good-natured, loving, lovable. Like watch what you say about them, not just to them, but even just about them, even if they don't even hear it. What you say about them is what you say over them. And so, you know, he was he was very adamant like that. And so, uh, you to the best of my ability, though, you know, fallen human being though I am, I've tried to speak blessing over my children, you know, like in you know, when they were little and you put them to bed and so forth, you you speak those blessings over them, and and you see the areas that in their own life, that whatever it is that they come home with that they're struggling with, that you then you want to speak into that in a in a in a way that helps create the world differently because our words speak, right? Emur can change things. That's powerful. Speech is powerful, it's very powerful. Uh, and so for this reason, the Magid of Mezzeric would at times recite concepts that he knew his listeners, his students, he would intentionally teach them things he knew they could no way possibly understand. His intent was to draw the idea into their world and so that it would be possible for them to comprehend it later. That was a technique my teachers, my teachers that were really close to me, they would use with me. And hopefully you've probably figured out it's a technique I use with you guys all of the time, right? I throw out things that I have, a really good idea, you have no idea what I'm saying, right? Or it's a concept where you're like, all right, all right, I know that, I know that, but hopefully by now, hopefully by now, five years or so into this with some of you, hopefully by now I can get an amen with somebody to go, yeah, I finally comprehended something he said in 2022, right? It's dawned on me. It took three and a half years, but it did I did figure it out. That's what I'm doing. I'm speaking something into you that I believe that I know you're not gonna get now, but I believe you will get later, and that will be beneficial for you later when you finally do get it. Some point you're gonna be reading your scripture, some point you're gonna be listening to a sermon, some point you're gonna be leading your own Bible study, whatever it may be, and you're gonna go, got it. Wow, thank you. Bam. Right? That's what it is. Speak. Speak it, right? Speak it into existence. To cite a similar concept in the realm of human relationships, the sage is taught that Lashan Harag and that malicious kind of talk, it kills three people, at least three people. The one who speaks it, the one who listens to it, and the one about whom it is spoken. We can understand why such a conversation affects the one who speaks it and even the one who listens to it, because both are a party to the sin, which the scriptures make equivalent to the combined effects of idol worship, murder, and adultery. But why should the person about whom the gossip was spoken be affected? They didn't necessarily take part in the transgression. But the resolution can be explained that speaking about a person's negative qualities or speaking negatively about them, uh, in addition to it assaulting their character and murdering their character, it also affects them in a way that they may not even be aware of. They may not even be aware they're being spoken about, but it can affect them and their qualities. Like somebody is speaking negativity over them. And if they aren't in a position where they are uh spiritually mature enough or in certain places of maturity for that, it could cause harm to them. Like you need to be aware when you slander someone, you're not only potentially harming their reputation, which is sinful and wrong, you could potentially literally be harming them. Like literally harming them. Uh speak, right? It creates, it creates worlds. Uh had these faults not been spoken about them and over them, perhaps certain things would have remained hidden and not in view. Positive attributes are more powerful than the attributes of retribution, and similar concepts apply with regard to speaking about a person's positive character traits. The consistent mention of the good a person possesses, and within every individual, there are unfathomable reservoirs of goodwill which will facilitate the expression of good in that person's conduct. And so all of this relates to the Torah portion this week, which is called Imur. Imur is a command telling one to speak. In the context of the Torah reading, this command has an immediate application to communicate laws pertaining to the priesthood. Nevertheless, the fact that this term is used as the name of the reading indicates a wider significance. That a person, you and I, must speak. And yet the sages give us the counsel, say little. And I did not find anything better, one sage said, I did not find anything better for one's person than silence, implying that excessive speech is not desirable. Nor can we say that the charge emor to speak refers to the commandments to speak the words of Scripture. For there is the explicit command, and you shall speak of them, encouraging us to proliferate the Scripture's words. For emor refers to speaking about our colleagues' virtues just as we have been talking about. So speak, but speak carefully. And at times, preferably speak little. Beyond the letter of the law. Leviticus 22, verse 32. It says, You shall not profane my holy name. This is the Lord speaking, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. So in the Torah, Genesis through Deuteronomy, there are what are known as 613 mitzvot. Mitzvot often understood as commandments, but better understood as connections. 613 ways to connect to God. One of those 613 is this verse. This is known as Keddish Hashem, the hallowing of God's name. This is the background of the petition in the Lord's Prayer of Hallowed be thy name. If you really want to know what Jesus mean when he teaches us to pray, hallowed be thy name, you need to know Jesus would have had in mind Leviticus 22, verse 32, the commandment to hallow God's name. It's a specific commandment in the Bible outlined with tons of commentary on it. And Jesus in his prayer is saying, pray that you do this. So he's telling you to understand the Torah and observe this part of the Torah. So what is Kiddish Hashem? What does it mean to hallow God's name? So let's explore this a little bit. One of the defining features of what we might call traditional religion is its careful attention to matters of detail, things like ethical behavior and lifestyle. So small wonder then that many people conclude that a life of faith, well, it isn't very spiritual. It's not a spiritual enterprise at all. And so we can hear things, especially from young college students, like, I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. Meaning, you know, I believe in God and I like these experiences and all that. But I'm not into that, you know, detailed ethical behavior, obedience, rules, rigid, liturgical, those kinds of things. I'm more spiritual than religious. All right? Where again, being religious, of course, implies the harsher aspects of a life of faith. And you know, hearing talk about things in Leviticus, how a sacrifice is to be offered, enduring explanations of how the high priest is to immerse himself and bow, and listening to endless repetitions of a fixed and archaic liturgy, well, that may seem hollow and pointless and futile at times, for sure. But in part, the problem is one of inadequate preparation. You see, without prior study, a Shakespeare play or a great painting would also seem lifeless and stilted. If you were to take someone who never gave art a second thought to the Detroit Institute of Art, they might have a very boring time there, right? I've had this experience before where I've gone to uh a museum with someone, and you know, you can tell they're just not into it, and you're just like, this is an amazing piece of art. Like, how do you how do you not like, you know, like Rembrandt touched this canvas that you're like two inches from? Like, how are you not like shaking, right? And they're like, I could do that. And you just like, sorry, you want to punch someone in the face when they're at a museum and go, I could do that. No, no, you could not do that. I promise you. I promise you, you could not do that. Or, or please, let's go home and I want to see you do that, right? But it's because they've never been prepared for, they don't know what they're looking at, they don't understand any of the they don't, they don't know what they don't know. Or Shakespeare, well, if you if you don't know, you don't, if you don't know why it's a brilliant play, right? You don't know. Sometimes you maybe need to be told before you go to a Shakespeare play, here's what the play's about, here's what's gonna happen, this is why it's amazing, this is a crucial point in you're gonna see, these are the depths of the character. You may need to be spoiler alert, you need to may need to blow the whole thing, but you may need to like spend a lot of time unpacking it so that when they go, they're like, wow, right? Same thing with classical music or an orchestra or the opera or whatever. Like, sometimes things worth it mean you gotta roll up your sleeves and put some effort into it, right? But when you do, you find out, oh, well, this is why it's a big deal. This is why people are still reading Shakespeare hundreds of years afterwards and aren't reading something written by his next door neighbor, right? Who we don't even know, right? Or this is why this is piece of art sold for$20 million and is in a museum, where his next door neighbor who thought he could do that, we've never heard of and have never seen his art, right? It's because there is something to it. The same thing is for the biblical faith, right? There is something to it, and there is something to the liturgy, and there is something to all of this, but you have to know it and you have to put the effort into it. Achievements of real depth require some training to be able to experience the wisdom that is encoded within it. And part of the problem is adopting a foreign definition of spirituality so that it precludes the strongest element of authentic biblical spirituality, building a community that sees solidarity, transformation, and transcendence as its highest expression of faith. But those answers only explain part of the problem. To some extent, traditional biblical faith has always recognized that just reducing everything to rubrics and how to walk the faith out, that also does represent a betrayal of the fullness of biblical revelation. The great rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel used to call this idolatry pan-halachism, that is, reducing the faith to a set of rules and axioms that are universal and everyone just simply knows do this, do that, check the boxes, and that's the faith. As central as certain non-negotiables are, and as central and important as benchmarks are and have always been and must always be, the contours of biblical faith extend well beyond issues of permitted and prohibited. The portion of Ymoor speaks to that religious realm beyond the reach of simply having a checklist of what is orthodox. Much of righteous living cannot be reduced to simple rules. Prohibitions and mandates don't instill values such as kindness, selflessness, and charity. I remember I graduated seminary in 2001. And in 2011, I started a four-year program called the Pastoral Leadership Institute. And it looked more like at the practical things, and it was designed for people who had been out of seminary for at least a decade. It and it was you know looking at just how to how to improve your skills as a pastor and so forth. I remember having a classmate join me in that, and uh we were going through some of the program, and he and I both had this great revelation that seminary taught us to love theology really well, and it taught us to love doctrine really well, and it taught us to love being right really, really well. But it never taught us to love people. It just didn't. And chances are if you've ever been in a church that's had a first-year pastor, you've picked up on that real fast. He's right. He's right probably 99.9% of the time. And his doctrine is probably pure 100% of the time. But he's not always very loving, and he always isn't necessarily the kindest, and you know, those kind of qualities, they don't you're not taught that, right? Those are different, like um, you know, it's it's after I got my doctorate and uh I remember I had a parishioner. Uh again, you you often learn more from your parishioners than you do from schools. And they simply looked at me and said, you know, we don't really care how much you know until we know how much you care. And he was like, by the way, I am proud you got your doctor. But that's when I received my doctorate, that was his congratulations to me. We don't really care how much you know until we know how much you care. There's a slight rebuke in that, right? But I took it and I understood what he was saying, and it you know I took I took it to heart. So above and beyond the rule is the gospel's insistence that we live our lives in a way that testifies to God's goodness, it testifies to his justice, his love, but most especially it testifies to what's been given to us in and through the Messiah. It's got to testify to who God is in his nature. And that is a God of chesed, a God of grace, a God of love, a God who's given to us a savior. Such a way of living, that's what Kiddish Hashem is. That is sanctifying God's name. That's what sanctifying God's name is, is when your way of living, when your way of living reveals the actual character of God. Not the doctrine of God, not the theology of God. Those things are important, by the way. I still think your pastor should have an emdiv from one of the two seminaries of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Sand. And they should be duly trained and duly called. However, they also should reflect God's character and how they live and how they speak. They should reflect the kindness of who God is. They should reflect his guess, right? Because that's Keddish Hashem. Because people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Any deed that makes God's sovereignty, his grace, his love, especially the love given in Messiah. Any action that bears witness to who God is, who truly is, that's Kidish Hashem. That's hallowing God's name. That's the highest value within the orbit of values. And this week's portion is understood as the source of this particular commandment to hallow God's name. God tells the people, you shall profane, you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified, hallowed in the midst of the people of Israel. Life presents us with a simple choice. How we live our lives can either heighten the sense of God in the world or it can diminish it. And so when Jesus told us to pray, hallowed be thy name, he's saying, live your life in such a way that it heightens the sense of God in this world. Not diminish it. There is no neutral or middle ground. How you're living your life is either heightening the sense of God in this world or it's diminishing it. But it's not leaving it neutral. By treating our fellow human beings with generosity, with kindness, with compassion, we bear witness to God's generosity and kindness and compassion. Acts of greed and selfishness make that bounty harder to perceive. Again, imagine if, you know, it's especially in Macomb. It's a difficult challenge. But at a red light, I flip somebody off and then I pull into the church. And the person I flipped off pulls into the church and they're a first-time visitor. And then they see me pull and then they see me mount the pulpit and preach. I haven't kidded to shim, right? I haven't broadened God's presence, right? Instead, I've restricted that and I've caused offense. In everything we do, we can help others know there is a God, that there is a savior, that's Kiddish Hashim. We can bring credit to the God of Israel and to his Messiah. Far more than simply arguing about rules and theology and doctrine and who's right and who's wrong. The essence of a lived-out faith is the compassion and love that those rules embody. So again, I'm not saying you throw all of that out. You don't throw all of that out. God Almighty and God forbid you do not throw all of that out. But you gotta know the soul of that. That's all there as a body. You've got to let people see the soul of it. As the great 19th century rabbi Israel Salanter said, compassion is the foundation of belief. For a person who isn't compassionate, even the belief in God is idolatry. In hell, legal philosopher Robert Covert noted, there will only be rules, and they will be strictly enforced. Similarly, C.S. Lewis once described hell as a bureaucracy. We make heaven here on earth when we sanctify God's name and God's word by using them to express God's true values and his true character. We are what we do, and to be a holy people, we must live each moment as an opportunity to serve God. That's kiddish Hashem. That's hallowing God's name. This little light of mine. Leviticus 24, verse 2. Command the children of Israel that they may bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light to make the lamps burn continually. In an age that struggles with the paradoxes of having immense abundance and yet global poverty, of power great enough to alter climate change and yet seeming inability to prevent the reoccurrence of slavery, to have democracies that can inspire constituents to bother going to vote, to having totalitarians who won't permit their people's will to surface, the portion and more offers some insight. Instructing the Israelites on the laws of priestly conduct and the calendar cycle, God then speaks to Moses and says, Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly. Here is the divine instruction for establishing what is known as the Ner Tamid, N-E-R-T-A-M-I-D, Ner Tamid, the eternal light that is found in nearly every house of worship, including the one right there. That is there because of that verse. The rabbis of the Midrash of Ayikra Rabbah were quick to note the paradox. Why would God need our light? They exclaim, Who is like you? You give light to the celestial and the terrestrial beings. You give light to all who come into the world, and yet you ask for Israel's light? What the tradition wrestles with here is how a paltry human being can even hope to make a worthy contribution to the God who is the source of all life and the creator of the universe. What can we give to the God who has everything? What is it that God expects of us? And so the sages see the Ner Tamid, the ever-burning light, the eternal light in the sanctuary, as an allusion to the centrality of the individual human soul and the effort that every one of us can make to transform our own little corner of the world. The Talmudic sage Bar Kapara explained, quote, the Holy Blessed One be He said to humanity, Your lamp is in my hand, and shall my lamp be in your hands? The Holy One, blessed be he, said, If you light my lamp, I will light yours. There is a kind of reciprocity to our relationship with God. A religious way of saying that our ultimate meaning and our ultimate justice require the constant exertions of the average person. Our individual efforts, small though they may be and seem, are indispensable building blocks of a society founded on God's righteousness and compassion. Without an ability to trust our fellow citizens, without a willingness to rely on each other for decency and assistance, no law, no military, no government can hope to stand. Instead, expecting all the light to shine from above, we will each remain in our armed fortresses of ignorance, hatred, and violence. The drawbridges are up, the swords are unsheathed. Only if we each contribute our own little light can we hope to illuminate the darkness that threatens to engulf the world. Your little candle of hope, your little candle of goodness, your little candle of decency, it may not be much in and of itself, and it certainly is nothing when compared to God's light. But with mine and with those of our neighbors and the stranger down the road, we can build a blaze that will light our paths, incinerate biases and misunderstandings, and forge an unbreakable bond. All we're waiting for is your light. So the light there is to remind we have a responsibility in this. It's not just God's responsibility to shine light into the world. He does that, he will do that, he's the source of all light. But we're also to bring our own light too. We have a role in this. The appointed times of Messiah. Now I would recommend you go to the archives and check out the Sun and Scriptures podcast because there looks more in depth at each of these appointed times from how they connect to the Messiah and so forth, but briefly want to mention them here. I talked about how one of the terms Moed means appointment. These appointment times, you know, are God's appointments, but there's another term the scriptures use for these, and it's the word that means rehearsal. And so these are also rehearsals of God. Now you think about it in terms of rehearsal. You know, if you've ever been in a band, or if you've ever been in like drama club or been part of a play, or you've ever been part of anything that's really big and public, you know the importance of a rehearsal, a run-through, a sound check, right? It's not the real thing, but it's also not a minor thing, right? It's very, very important, and you can learn a lot, and it's what prepares you for it, it's what gets you ready for it, it's what helps you understand what's actually going to happen so that when it happens, you know what is actually happening. And so these appointments, these festivals, these feasts, these holidays, these events on God's calendars are also rehearsals for ultimate events of God. And so, because of that, they're important. Like they're rehearsals for us, they're rehearsals for times of redemption. They are like the blueprints for the work of the Messiah himself. So you think about the spring festivals of Passover, unleavened bread, um, the Omer and the Pentac of Pentecost. They all have connections to you think about Jesus' first coming, right? How they're connected to that, and how they had fulfillment in that, and how they were appointments for that, and rehearsals that they were rehearsing for that. The fall festivals, feast of tabernacles, day of atonement. They've also had direct connection to the Messiah's birth and to his death. Feast of trumpets and the eighth day, particularly point to his second coming, and so they have still some things to teach us. They're a shadow of what is to come, as Paul would say in Colossians 2, 17. So you have a little chart there that I prepared that goes through the appointed times, the rehearsals in the portion this week. You have the Sabbath, uh, which has a messianic meaning, a rehearsal for the Sabbath rest of creation, the final redemption, the reign of Messiah. You have Passover and unleavened bread connects to the Last Supper, and the Messiah as our Passover lamb, his death and his burial, the first fruits. Uh that's Messiah's resurrection. That's why Paul will call him the first fruits from the dead. You have Pentecost, the outpouring of Messiah's spirit, just as Torah was outpourred at Sinai. Pentecost is when the Torah was given. Then you have the long, dry summer months. There are no appointed times, there are no rehearsals. That's kind of like the period we're in now between the first and the second coming. You have the feast of trumpets, also known as Rosh Hashanah, the trumpet blast of the return of the Messiah, the trumpet of the last days, the day of atonement, the Om Kippur, the atoning work of the Messiah's blood, the feast of Bus or Sukkot, tabernacles, the period where Messiah will tabernacle among us, preceding the final redemption, also connects to his birth, his incarnation. And the eighth day, the new heaven, the new earth, and the new Jerusalem, the new creation. So all of those appointed times have messianic connections. So it's always important to remind ourselves of that. Sun and Scriptures is a good resource to check out the details of that. All right. We will close there this evening. We will pick it up next week. We will close out the book of Leviticus with a double portion. All right. Let's close with the blessing. Baruchata Adonai Notein Hatorah. Blessed are you, Lord God, who has given to us the gift that is the Torah. Amen. Shlum Shlum. Hi everyone. Thank you for engaging this teaching. You know, we in a manual have as one of our goals to make our teachings available online to anyone, everywhere, at any time, whether that's through a podcast or our YouTube channel or an MP3 download. It is our gift to use, and we want you to use it however you see fit. 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