The Garden Within | KI TETZE כִּי־תֵצֵא - Portion 49

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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!

#immlutheran #drchadfoster #christian #lcms #messianic

Transcript

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All right, good evening, everyone, air of Tove. Welcome to the Garden Within as we are continuing our journey through the Taurus portions and we'll get started with that uh momentarily. But I want to give you a brief announcement about um what I think is pretty exciting, and we'll be coming our way in October. We're gonna do things a little bit differently. Uh next week I'll have more information for you, but I want to kind of tease you with it this evening. Uh, in uh mid-October, uh the the Torah cycle starts over again uh after the fall festivals, um, and it starts over again, obviously, with uh Genesis Beresheet. And I think what we're gonna be heading towards uh in that cycle is kind of joining a program with uh individuals around the nation. And part of what that entails, uh, if you choose to participate in that, uh, comes with audio resources, video resources, and then each week you get like a 20-page kind of booklet like this that comes with um what would be kind of the equivalent of like what I talk about, uh, you know, breaks down that that portion and sections and so forth and themes. Uh, and then it uh also has uh focus sections, uh areas for the the group would have discussion on that. Uh and so it's uh very organized, uh and again it's it's part of a national uh program. Uh and the theme for the what would be upcoming is called the narrow path. So, like we've done Echoes of Eden, Sun in Scriptures, Garden Within. This is the narrow path. And hopefully next week I'll have a video for you kind of introducing why it's called the narrow path, what that means. But it seems to be uh a similar vein of the sun in the scriptures. That is, it's going to be looking at the Torah specifically through uh a messianic perspective and how the teachings of Jesus uh tie in and link to those. Uh so just want to tease you with that. Uh next week we'll have uh hopefully again the video, some more information about it. Um you'll be able to check out some of the material uh and all of that. But that'll be coming in October. Uh but if you want to come up after class and just kind of take a peek, you'd be getting one of these each week. So each so you'd get be getting, you wouldn't be getting 54 because as we know, some of them are double portions, but for our purposes, you'd be getting 54 of these, one for each of the portions. Uh just great material, great resource reference, even past the class, uh, because you you have it all in there. Um, and it it's nice, I think it's pretty cool because it's nice and wide margin, so you can take notes as you're kind of going through and all of that. So if you want to check that out after class, please do so. And then next week we'll talk a little bit more about it and how to sign up for it and be part of it. Um, all right, but just want to give you a heads up that in October, when the cycle starts over, uh, we will be offering that uh Torah study, but it'll be a little bit different. Uh and hopefully, in some ways, because of the audio and video resources, uh, it will be able to enhance your study and help you engage with others uh whoever like mine. All right. So let's uh get started with the blessing before the study of Torah, and then we'll dive in. Let's pray. Baruchata'a adhana medakwailam, a shekirishanu bomispata, vesevanu le sok bidivrei 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. So uh this week we come to portion number 49 of the Torah's 54 portions. So getting very close to uh completing the Torah cycle. Uh portion 49 is the portion known as Kitetsei, Ki Tetse, which uh means um kind of when you go out. Uh Ki meaning the win and uh Tetse kind of going forth, heading out. Uh Kitetse. It covers Deuteronomy chapter 21, verse 10, and goes through chapter 25, verse 19. Uh and so we're gonna take uh seriously the idea, the concept that we uh entered into two weeks ago when we were in the portion Re, uh, as we were getting close to the month of Elul, the Hebrew month Elul. Uh now we are in Elul, and so we're gonna be looking at it from how do these portions help us in the month of Elul, uh, that time of introspection, that time of personal growth, and so forth. So that's gonna be kind of our focus as we go through it. All right, so let's uh dive into the text here, going out to war on a personal level. So in the garden within, right, we want to read the Torah on a level that we begin to see practical applications, the timelessness of it, what makes it the inspired word of God for all generations. And so this week's portion begins with the words in Deuteronomy 21, verse 10 When you will go forth, right? That's the Hebrew words, kitetse, when you will go forth in war against your enemy. And the next week's portion, which is called kitavo, it begins with, and when you come into the land. So this week's portion is about going out into war, and next week's portion is about when you come in. All right, so we got this going out and coming in, right? And that's an important concept in the Hebraic mindset. Uh, this juxtaposition of going out and coming in uh captures one of the most powerful dynamics present not only in the scriptures, but in nature, in the human body, and in what we would even call the human condition, uh the dynamic known as run and return. Uh and so as we look now at this particular opening verse, you know, again, 21st century readers, we may think, well, I don't really plan on going forth in war anytime soon. Uh, how is this text going to apply to me? And that's when the sages have always said, right, we're in the garden. And on a Peshat level, it means what it says, it says what it means. It's Moses giving advice to the Israelites. Hey, there's gonna be a time when you are a group as a group of people, as a nation, you're gonna have enemies and you're probably gonna end up having conflicts with them. And so when that happens, this is what you were to do, right? That's the Peshat of it, right? But in the garden, we want to look at some of the Remez and the Darash, some of the hints and some of the homiletical applications, which means we then take these words kind of more uh on an allegorical level. So this is gonna be about, well, I mean, think about it. How many times have you had a war inside of yourself where you're like, on one hand I want this, on the other hand, I want that, right? Uh, and you're having that that struggle and so forth. That's what the sages are always gonna say. Well, that's also what this is applying to. If the Peshat's true, and the Peshat always is true, but it also allows us to read this as almost like um a spiritual guide. So, you know, if you go to like Barnes and Nobles and you check out their like cheap classic book section, right? There's all there's always in there the the classic uh called the art of war, right? Well, what's that about? Well, technically it's about samurai warfare, right? And and the the way this very intelligent general did samurai warfare. But Fortune 500 businesses actually require that for reading for their executives. Why in the world would they want their executives learning samurai war techniques? Because they also realize it has a lot to do with interpersonal relationships, like you know, how to deal with difficult people or how to deal with challenging people. Where do you put those who are being in opposition to you? How do you kind of relate to them? And um and how do you keep those who are trusted advisors, how do you keep them close to you, and how do you keep them trusted? How do you keep them not from defecting to the other side? Like it ends up being a great manual on how to live life, right? And that's why it's survived all of these centuries, and that's why it finds itself in the classics section, that's why businesses have their executives read it. Uh, so the same kind of principle would be going on in the Torah as well. And so that's the perspective we're going to be looking at this evening, uh, especially this idea of going out to war, and then even which I think is uh a funny part of the text, uh, which is why I chose it. Uh, we will talk about where the Torah actually gives instructions to soldiers on, in addition to carrying your weapons, to carry uh a shovel, a spade, so that you can uh bury your waste when you go to the bathroom and so forth. And it talks about how to relieve yourself on the battlefield and things like that. And you think, why in the world am I reading this? Uh, but we're gonna see that that actually is a well-used passage in Judaism for the concept of the influence of space and how the space one is in many ways dictates their reality. Uh, and so it's got a very important deep lesson, and we'll we'll get there. So that's that's kind of the angle we're taking in the garden. All right, and so as we look at this passage when you go out and realizing next week is going to be about when you come in, and we have this idea of run and return, uh, this cycle is reflected in a multitude of ways, uh, from the contraction and the expansion of the origins of the universe to the pulse that is running through our veins, from the cycles of the seasons to the ebb and flow of the tide, and also the way we exhale and inhale our breath to even the rhythmic beating of our heart. From exile to redemption, we see that told time and time again in the scriptures, and just in our everyday life, our ups and our downs, right? We even have the phrase life is a roller coaster. That's recognizing this idea of run and return is ingrained into our existence. And God has granted us the potential wisdom to know how to go out to war. That is, how and when to act forcefully, and how to go out into the world and step beyond our preconceived notions and what we preconceive as our limitations. However, God has also granted us through his spirit and through his word the wisdom to know when to come back home, when to return to the land, when to remain still, and when to ascend to a new level of spiritual maturity. Either we must learn to control the dynamic of run and return, learning to rule over it and learning how to flow with it, or we must face the reality of constantly being passive victims, toyed with by faceless forces that we will say is simply beyond our control. On a personal level, which is again our goal when we look at the Torah this year in the Garden Within cycle, going out to war against your enemy for us as children of God means refusing to remain complacent, constantly combating those inner forces that try to reject change and try to prevent the soul from telling the body how to act instead of the opposite. Traditionally, the Torah refers to this kind of internal enemy, uh, refers to it in Hebrew as the Yetzer Hera, which means the evil inclination. We might call it more in Christian theology, the sinful nature. Uh, and as we discussed a couple of weeks ago when we were in the portion Re, the portion of Kitetze always is read during the month of Elul, which is leading up to Rosh Hashanah and the fall festivals. But it's a time when we are in God's calendar, in God's timing, in God's appointment book, when we are intensely to be committed to spiritual introspection. And so I think I kind of gave the parallel when we were in Rea, as this is the original, the OG, the Hebrew calendar biblical uh kind of prototype for what the church celebrates as Lent, right? We're in a period where we're trying to be intensely and intentionally spiritually introspective. The evil inclination by nature is not going to give up without a fight. And so, whenever you're going to be doing that, it's going to be kind of rising up to the challenge and fight we must if we are committed to improving our relationship with our Creator as well as our relationship with one another and maturing spiritually. The Slonomer Rebbe would often write that a day spent without confronting one's inner battles is like a day wasted, a day not truly lived. And where does the believer find the strength to go out into the world to fulfill the injunction that we are to be a light to the nations? Well, all the way back in Bareshit, uh, we learn that the actions of our spiritual forefathers engraved lessons into our collective spiritual consciences. So the Paul talks about this uh when he says, all that happened in the wilderness, all that happened with our forefathers, he said, they happened as examples for us. He's actually quoting an oral tradition that the signs and the actions, uh, the portents of our forefathers, uh, that they are to be for us informative in how to live our life. And it kind of becomes part of our spiritual conscience. And so when we look in the book of Genesis, we see that Abraham consistently finds the strength to follow God, no matter what the stumbling blocks were placed before him. All the way back in Genesis 12, he's told to leave his country, to leave his family, to leave everything known to him, to leave all of that behind, and literally go into the unknown. And wherever God directed him, that would be where he would find himself. And after arriving in the land of Canaan, after he finally arrives into that land, God showed him. Famine forced him to leave for Egypt. But he returns wealthier than before. And so you, when you become conscious of the run and return, you see it all the time in the scriptures. And therefore, we should expect to see it in our life, which hopefully can better equip us to navigate us either when we're going up or when we're coming down or when we're just making a wide right turn but going pretty fast. Uh, if we understand that this is all kind of going to be flowing, it can help us, right? And you see this pattern in Abraham. And finally, it takes him all the way to where he is um has the great test of binding his son Isaac. So Abraham's devotion paved the way uh in the end, eventually in future generations, for Israel to leave Egypt, right, in the middle of the night, and to follow God into the wilderness and the great unknown, and ultimately to enter into the land as a strong nation. When Abraham complained to God that he had no children, who would continue on his work? It says in the scriptures in Genesis, God took him outside, right? And uh I don't remember which year it was in our Torah study, but we spent time on the fact that Abraham is concerned that he has no children, and so who's going to carry on what he had started? Where will his legacy go? And in the ancient Near East, that's incredibly important. And so it says God took him outside, right? And we took the time to dive deep into that, and we understood beyond the Peshat of taking him out of his tent and letting him look into the sky, he took him outside of himself, took him outside of his preconceived notions, right? Took him outside of how he was limiting himself and limiting God, and God then showed him uh all that that entailed, uh, and showed him the stars and promised him that his progeny would be as numerous as the stars, which has also great divine counsel implications, because in the Old Testament, in the ancient Near East, stars and planets always represent angelic hosts, right? Uh, who are ruling with God and his council. And he tells Abraham, You're gonna have descendants who are going to eventually rule in the council with me, and not only meaning Messiah who will rule at the right hand, but even us, right? A part of our role as creation is to eventually uh take up our place as God's children and have that co-regency with our Messiah. And he so he takes him outside of himself to show him all of that. And what's interesting is in that passage in Genesis, the Hebrew word for took and took him outside, the Hebrew word is hotzi, H-O-T-Z-I, Hotsi, uh, but comes from the same root as our portion tetse. It's just a different congregation, conjugation of that word. And so when we look back to the portion Lechlecha that began in Genesis 12, we see God taught Abraham that he needed to go outside of his nature, to go outside of what he saw as reality, to go outside of the limitations that he had placed on himself. Uh and that same soul power is what provided Joseph with the strength to resist Potiphar's wife, enable him to again run outside to escape her clutches. And so what this means is a lot of times when you're reading your scripture, the word outside is kind of a big deal, right? It means more than just outside. Uh and the power uh is the inheritance that we as children of God also have. But each and every one of us must work hard to bring that potential to fruition in our life. And so, in this endless pattern of going out and returning, of confronting the enemy within and being gathered back home in peace, we behold the deepest thread that weaves through the human story, the longing for deliverance that is stronger than our own striving. If even Abraham, Joseph, and our fathers went forth with courage, it was by a power that was far beyond themselves. It was ultimately by their faith in the Lord who would go before them. And so it is with us. We have to be willing to go outside of ourselves and outside of what we know to be true for ourselves, knowing that the Lord goes with us and before us. And so in the fullness of time, the truest victor went out for his people, not just into the wilderness or into battle, but literally outside of the camp, bearing our weakness and our shame, and was to be hung on a tree, which is in this week's portion in Deuteronomy 21, and we'll spend some time on. The Messiah, Jesus, went forth to war against our greatest enemies, sin, death, the evil inclination that holds our every heart captive. And yet he did what none before him could do. He returned in resurrection glory, and with his return, he brings us with him. And now in him our going out is never in vain, and our coming in is no longer uncertain. The risen Messiah sends his spirit to equip us in the battle every day, not merely to fight, but to be remade. In every struggle, Messiah is our strength, and every return, Messiah is our rest. As Paul would write in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 57 Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. In the run and the return of life, in its wars, in its wildernesses, in its homecomings. We are to be hidden with the Messiah, whose victory by grace and through faith has become our very own. And in him the promise holds from Isaiah. So again, we talked about the portion this week, Deuteronomy 21, verse 10, begins with the phrase, the verse, when you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God will deliver them into your hand. And later, the importance of keeping a camp of soldiers clean and pure is discussed. And those that become impure are to temporarily leave the camp until they can become ritually pure again. And so here I want to read this portion from Deuteronomy 23 that at first we may think, may even snicker at a little bit and think it's amusing, but certainly you may be tempted to think. It could possibly have no relevance to us in our lives now. And this is Deuteronomy chapter 23, looking at verses 13 through 15. And this is my translation. And you shall have a designated place outside the camp, so that you can go out there, meaning to use it as your bathroom, and you shall keep a spade in addition to your weapons, and it shall be when you sit down outside, that is, when you go to the potty, you shall dig with it and turn back and cover your excrement. For the Lord your God goes along in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to deliver your enemies before you. Therefore your camp shall be holy, so that he should not see anything unseemly among you and would turn away from you. So again, you know, like why would we spend time thinking about, well, if you're out on the battlefield, make sure you put your restroom outside the camp, right? Um little pr good practical advice, like you don't want to do that right next to the whole family and so forth, uh, and contaminate water and supplies and all of that. But something else is going on here, and I think it's an important concept that we can think about organizationally as a as a church, you can think about it uh personally uh as well, and that is the idea of space, right? And what space does or what space can do. So despite the fact that being at war or even in an outside environment during maneuvers or training, uh despite the fact that that's not always thought of as the most hygienic place or one of holiness, the Torah here insists on the cleanliness and the purity of a soldier's environment. And this is connected to a Talmudic concept referred to as makom gorim, M-A-K-O-M, Makom, like the township we are in, Gorim, G-O-R-E-M, Makom Gorim, which means that a place has influence, the influence of a place. And it can create circumstances or cause an outcome. Talmud talks about this in Tractate Sota and Tractate Sanhedrin. But this has a wide application, and I think it can be seen in many different ways on both the material and the spiritual plane. For example, I think most of us probably could relate to the experience of knowing the positive influence and effect of being in a holy religious place. Right? You you just know, for instance, when you walk into certain buildings, whether that's a church or whether that's, you know, a monastery, or you just walk into it and by the way it is set up, by what happens there, by the way it is treated, by the way uh things are not only that happen there, but what they don't allow to happen there, right? All of that creates a sense of holiness. You can feel it. You hopefully had that experience somewhere where you're like, there's holiness here, right? You can smell it, you can see it, you can feel it, like you encounter it, right? There's something about the space. Uh, and it's not just uh a religious place, it could be the sheer beauty of nature uh that that has on the body, the mind, and the soul. And likewise, I think the opposite. Everyone knows and feels the negative vibrations of being in a place of filth, uh a place of neglect, a place of darkness, a place of cynicism, uh, a place where God is not welcome, right? You even if you aren't cognizant of that immediately, you may even still sense it uh upon your arrival in that space. Uh the concept of the place influences, that's again what makom gorim means. The place influences. And it can do so in a wider context that applies not only to physical locations, but also mental ones. Because remember, we're in the month of Alull, and we want to take these concepts of Torah and we want to take them into our own lives. We want to bring them interior. And so when a person is in a sad, depressed, frustrated, emotional place, when they are what we might say in today's world, uh, you know, emotionally dysregulated, right? That has the potential to create not only great internal dissonance, but it can create external chaos as well, right? And so sometimes when our minds are a mess, our lives become a mess. And I don't know how many of you, and I'm not promoting him, I'm not endorsing him, I just know this is one of his particular things. Uh, if you've ever heard of Jordan Peterson, one of the things he says to people that he's actually doing counseling with is clean your bedroom every morning. Make your bed, tidy it up, have your clothes folded or hanging, however you, you know, get your clothes orderly, have it leave your bedroom every morning in pristine shape. And you know, people think he's nuts. Like, what's that got to do with the chaos in my life? But time and time again, he gives people testimony when people do that, it changes their life, it changes the rest of their day. And it most especially changes when they get home from a hard day, a stressful day, a chaotic day, and they open up their bedroom to rest, that it's ready to be a place of rest instead of being more chaos in like 15 pairs of pants on the floor and the sheets all wrinkled. You can't even like relax, right? That the shape of your bedroom is his, his, his, this is what he always says, the shape of your bedroom is the shape of your mind. Right? And it's this is really getting at this idea that the rabbis talked about as well that place influences. And of course, the opposite would be true. If our minds a mess, that can often make our life a mess. If our life is joyous, if it's optimistic, if it sees positive things, if it is in a loving head space, that is conducive to seeing the world around us in a positive light, which has a direct influence on life's actual occurrences. And therefore, we can understand the importance the Torah places on, yes, even an army encampment, we're maintaining a high standard of not just physical cleanliness, but it understands that that is going to also enable their moral and ethical purity as well. So when at war, we are speaking of life and death, and therefore the physical and spiritual environment of an army camp is of supreme significance. On a deeper level, even, getting more towards the darash level of this, it is important to note that one of the ways that we refer to God in Hebrew, it's in your scriptures, God is actually referred to as Hamakom. He's actually referred to as the place. I mean, that's an actual name of God, like literally, he's called the place, Hamakom. Uh, after the people sinned by worshiping the golden calf, Moses entreats God to forgive them. And in the course of this repentance process, God revealed what we know as the 13 uh principles of compassion, and he introduces it this way in Exodus 33. And God said, Behold, there is a place with me, Hamachom. You may stand on the rock. When my glory passes by, I shall place you in a cleft on the rock. I will shield you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back, but my face will not be seen. Now, Rashi, commenting on this, notes that in the Hebrew, uh, where most translations say there is a place with me, or it's the Hebrew actually says, There is a place with me, uh, meaning I am that place. That's more what the Hebrew is getting at. Like God's the place. Specifically, God is the place of the world, but the world is not his place. From this, we can deduce that the more we connect to God as the place of the world, the more God connects to us, for the place influences. The more God is in our life, the greater we will feel his presence, his influence, and the manifestation of his will, ultimately shaping our will to be like his. And imagining God as the place of the world creates the mental space of always being surrounded by the divine presence. And so this is a lot of what's behind if you have studied or participated in like the kairos moments and so forth, that's the same principle, right? It's realizing that everywhere you're at is hamakom. Everywhere you're at is a place where God is, where God is active, where God is doing something. Will you but have the eyes to see it? Another concept essentially connected to the place influences is a statement in the Talmud that there are four things that cause an unfavorable decree to be canceled. One is charity, one is crying out to God in prayer, one is a change of name, and then the fourth one is a change of action. And this basic idea is incorporated in the prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. So if you open up a prayer book for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, one of the most emotionally charged moments of that day is when the congregation prays together out loud, almost shouting, repentance, prayer, charity, these remove evil. These remove evil actions against us. Additionally, an opinion is brought that changing one's place also has the power to cancel negativity in our life. Sometimes we, you know, we even have that phrase, maybe you need a change of scenery, right? Because sometimes the change of scenery is what we need. The source of this opinion is when God told Abraham, again in Genesis 12, to go, to go from his land. And then the very next verse, God promises, I will make you a great nation. Until then, Abraham and Sarah, they weren't even able to have any children, and God promises to make him a great nation, meant that by changing his place, by leaving behind the Ur of the Chaldeans and going to the land of Canaan, he would then be able to have not only a child, but he would be able to be the father of a nation. And there is a story in the Talmud about Rabbi Eliezer bin Arach, one of the top five students of Rabbi Johan and Zekai, who instead of following the other students to Yavne after their teacher passed away, he decided he would retire and settle in a place known for its beauty and its material pleasures. It wasn't a place for students of the Torah. And due to that environment, he slowly but surely began to forget everything that his teacher had taught him. The place influences. And so some of that can mean thinking about, you know, this week, where are your places? Where are your places? And how are they influencing you? The idea of changing place is also in Hebrew called Masine Mekom, Mashane Mazel. Change your place, change your mazel. Mazel coming from the word nozel, which means flowing. You ever heard of Mazltav, right? What does Mazltav mean? You're wishing them good things, good blessings, a good flow of amazing joy and prosperity. Change your place, change your mazzle, change what is going on around you. And so those things that influence us aren't just the things ingrained from our nature by birth or our circumstances into which we were born, such as family, wealth, and DNA, but it's also connected to our places. What do we call our place? Returning to our original discussion regarding the importance of a pure and clean army camp. It should be clear the wider implications of the Torah's insistence on these standards. The physical and the spiritual quality and the ambiance of a place has both subtle and obvious influences on a person's feelings, their thoughts, their actions. Sometimes the place we're in, we may not even be aware of how it's influencing us. But this truth is an important teaching to remember and implement whenever and wherever possible. And so as we reflect on the Torage charge to keep the camp pure, we are reminded that the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and give your enemies over to you, and therefore your camp shall be holy. That's Deuteronomy 23, verse 14. The God who was called Hamakom, the place, is not distant, but present among his people, shaping and sanctifying the very spaces we inhabit. And yet we know that if left to ourselves, even our best attempts at purity will be marked by some kind of sin. Every camp, every heart is touched by defilement that clings to all the children of Adam. But here is the promise that's fulfilled for us in our Messiah. The Holy One Himself entered into the unclean places of our world. He entered into a camp stained by rebellion, and he became flesh and dwelt among us. His place was our place. And he, the very true presence of God, took upon himself our impurity, our filth, our failures, our forgotten places. And on the cross, outside of the camp, he bore the shame and the curse that we could not cleanse. But now by his blood, he brings us into a new place, a holy place, cleansed and covered and accepted. In Messiah, we are no longer defined by a background or by circumstances. But as Paul would say in 2 Corinthians, anyone who is in Messiah is a new creation, a vessel made holy wherever we stand. And so as we journey through the changing places of life, may we always seek not just a pure space, but the pure and living presence of our Messiah, who is the perfect place, the one who goes before us, the one who dwells within us, and the one who gathers us to himself, holy and whole. The high cost of doubt. Deuteronomy chapter 25, verses 15 and 16. It says, You shall have a full and honest weight, and a full and honest effa measure, in order that your days will be prolonged on the land which the Lord your God gives you. For whoever does these things, meaning deceptive measurement, deceptive business practices, whoever perpetrates such injustice is an abomination to the Lord your God. So immediately following this commandment to essentially be honest in business matters, is the commandment to wipe out the memory of an individual known as Amalek. Amalek is not only a historical individual, historic group of people that we first encountered in the book of Exodus, uh, but it also Amalek becomes kind of the kind of the all-time way to reference the archenemy of God's people, right? In any and every generation, the the archenemy of God's people will be given the name Amal Amalek. It's an archetype. So again, Peshat, it's rooted in history. Amalek's the one who snuck up behind uh the children of Israel as they were leaving Egypt and attacked them, right? Uh and then you have people coming from the tribe of Amalek that continually haunt the children of Israel. Uh the most notorious would be Haman in the book of Esther. He comes from that tribe. Uh, you also see in the books of Samuel uh and so forth, where Saul is told to eliminate them because they are harassing uh the people then, even. And so it's this comes this archetype of the archenemy of God's people. And so the Torah says, You shall remember what Amalek did to you on the way, when you went out of Egypt, how he happened upon you on the way, and cut off all the stragglers at your rear, when you were faint and weary, and he did not fear the Lord. Therefore, it will be when the Lord your God grants you respite from all your enemies around you in the land which the Lord your God gives you as your inheritance to possess, you shall wipe out the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens. You shall not forget. That's what this week's Torah portion tells them about Amalek. Rashi comments that if a person is dishonest in business matters with things like false weights, they should worry about facing an enemy like Amalek. That's how Rashi sees kind of the fact that these are paired together in the Torah. That Amalek would sneak up on this individual, relentlessly pursue them. Other than the fact that these two commandments are juxtaposed, one immediately after the other, the question is: what's the deeper connection between the two? When Amalek attacked Israel soon after leaving Egypt, it followed Israel's bitter complaint to Moses, and by extension, a complaint to God because of their lack of water. So God tells Moses in Exodus 17, take your staff and go hit the rock in Korav and bring forth water. Moses does this, he's successful. But the incident ends with Moses calling the place Masa and Merevah, which means in Hebrew the place of testing and the place of contention. And then it has the people saying this in Exodus 17 Is God among us or not? So this is after God has brought them out of Egypt, brought them out of slavery, brought them through the ten plagues and those miracles, brought them through the crossing of the Red Sea, experienced that miracle, experienced water coming from a rock to cure their thirst because they were complaining that they were thirsty. After all of that, they have the chutzbah to say, Is God actually with us? And after that question, the very next verse says, Amalek came and battled Israel in Rephidim. So right after that, right after they doubted God's presence, right after they doubted God's goodness and favorable disposition to them, right after doubt became part of what they were spiritually, the text immediately takes you to Amalek. The juxtaposition of these two incidences, Rashi comments, is that God, as it were, was saying to Israel, I am always among you. I'm always ready to provide all of your needs, and yet you still ask if I am among you or not. By your life a dog will come and bite you and cry out to me. And when then you will know there I am. You'll know I'm with you. So sometimes when we ask, is God with us? We may not want to experience the answer of yes, because it may be a dog bite in our rear end, as Rashi says. Rashi, of course, is being anthropomorphic, trying to tie the events together, but even more so to show how Israel's doubt in God's presence brought about the energy of Amalek. And it's here where the great Hasidic teacher, the Bashem Tov, revealed this connection through Gamatria. So here we're going to be going in the garden to the level of sod in the pardays, the S. And that's Gamatria. Because if you take the Hebrew word Amalek and you add up its letters, and you take uh the Hebrew word for doubt, which is sapphic, and you add up its letters, they both equal to 40. And so from a Deeper spiritual perspective, the great archenemy of God's people is doubt. It is doubting God. That's the great enemy. Israel's lack of faith and their expression of doubt in God in a spiritual sense created their very own archenemy. It is further explained in Hasadud and by the Bal Shim Tov that Amalek represents in an individual that inner voice, that inner voice that we have that sheds doubt on our ability to accomplish something or to be successful or even to trust our own intuition or our moral compass, right? That voice that is always speaking negativity into us and speaking doubt into us, causing us to doubt not only others, but to doubt ourselves, that is Amalek, right? And that is the command. We must get rid of Amalek. It is the voice of failure, it is the voice of lowest self-esteem. It is the voice of doubting the authenticity of one's core being, of that of a divine image bearer. When individuals and organizations, movements or nations deal dishonestly with others in business and in other matters, it plants distrust. It causes doubts, and that undermines the relationship, right? If you don't trust someone, you doubt them. And when you doubt them, you don't have a good relationship with them, right? You do not have good relationships with people that you doubt. Torah tradition teaches that of all the sins of the generation of the flood, the nail in the coffin, so to speak, was that people stole from each other and were dishonest with each other in their business dealings, because that spread everywhere. Honesty in everyday matters is a fundamental principle of the Torah, and failure to live by it creates enemies on many different levels, threatening the individual and in some cases threatening the nation. And so it is no accident that the Torah places honesty in business and the battle against Amalek, the voice of doubt, that the Torah places them side by side. Dishonesty and deception do not just break trust between people, but open wide the door to doubt, discord, and destruction in our lives and in our communities. Yet even as our own hearts waver between faithfulness and fear, we are not left to wrestle alone. For the Messiah, Jesus, entered this world, true in heart, pure in action, perfect in every measure, where we have been dishonest and bent the scales and have been overcome by the voice of doubt. He remains steadfast, conquering not only the Amalok within, but the Amalok without. On the cross, Jesus bore our shame, our dishonesty, and every secret fear. And in his resurrection, he brings truth, justice, and the assurance that God is and always will be with us. In him, we are empowered to live, therefore, lives that have integrity, that we be honest in our dealings, confident in his presence, and bold to silence every voice of doubt with the certainty of his love. And so we walk daily in the light of our Messiah's truth, trusting that as we live honestly and faithfully, the Lord God will bless our days, conquer our enemies, again, both within and without. And this particular portion and this passage of being hung upon a tree reminded me when I studied in Israel. I studied in the northern Galilean town known as Svat. Usually it's spelled S-A-F-E-D in English, and people call it Safed, but it's really T-Z-F-A-T, Svat. It's a really uh it's the highest mountain in the Galilees. When Jesus talks about a city on a hill, yeah, that's fat, because you can see it no matter where you're at in the Galilee. And throughout time, even all the way back to the time of Shem after the flood, uh Svat has been a location for the study of God, especially the mystical aspect. And so I I would go there and would study uh in the synagogue of an individual known as the Radak and the Arizal. And there's a story about these two individuals tie into this verse that will eventually bring us to Messiah. So here's the story that connects to this particular set of verses here in Deuteronomy 21, 22 and 23. If a man commits a sin for which he is sentenced to death and he is put to death, you shall then hang him on a tree. But you shall not leave his body on the tree overnight. Now you are getting in the Torah background of why it was so important that they get Messiah's body off the cross. Rather, you shall bury him on that same day. For hanging a corpse is a bla for a hanging corpse, leaving that hanging overnight is a blasphemy of God, even if it's a criminal, even if it's someone that deserved it. To leave the body there is still a blasphemy of God. And you shall not defile your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. So the story, the first story that connects to this particular commandment, kind of two accounts of it, but it's when a very famous Torah scholar and sage around the time of the Reformation, his name was Rabbi Yitzhik Luria, known as the Arizal. He traveled from Egypt to the holy city of Spat. And one version of the story says he came six months before the premier teacher of that time, Moshe Cordovaro, known as the Ramak, passed away. And he came to sit in his yeshiva, to sit in his school, to become one of his disciples and learn from him. The other version is that he actually came on the very day that Moshe Cordovero passed away. But before he passed away, Cordover told his students that the person who would replace him, who would become the next generation's great teacher of the Torah, that you would know him, but he may at first seem very different, maybe even seem to teach things differently than him, but in the end would actually be taking them to a different level. And they asked him, Well, how will we know who this person is? How will we know who your successor is? He says, The one who sees a pillar of fire accompanying my body to its burial place, he will be the one to replace him, to replace, replace me. And so the funeral procession reaches the burial plot, and the Arizol steps up and says, It's not the proper place to bury our teacher. And when they questioned him and how he knew that, he said that the pillar of flyer that had been leading them had gone and is dwelling over another plot in the cemetery. And they, of course, were quite amazed by this statement and remembered what their master had told them. And when it came time to eulogize Cordivro, Arizol gave his eulogy based on this passage from Deuteronomy 21. He said that Cordivero was a pure and righteous soul, and the only reason he died was because of the sin of Adam and Eve, and their having eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that brought death to all. He explained that the above instruction to hang the body of someone condemned to death on a tree, and that in that particular case meant that the only reason that their holy rabbi had died was because Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And as a result, all humans must die. And therefore they could, in a sense, hang Cordoveros dying on the tree of knowledge. After they buried him, many of the students approached the Arizol as their new teacher, and he lives for a few years, and then he is buried in the same location. And when you go to Saphat and you study, you actually study in a little building right next to these two graves. Now, amid the solemn command of Deuteronomy, we hear a holy warning. For he who was hanged on a tree is cursed by God. The ancient people of Israel were taught to recognize the gravity of sin, the shame of the curse, and the urgent justice of God. Reminders that death itself entered our world not by accident, but as the necessary consequence of the rebellion in Eden's story. Yet the shadow cast over all the sons of Adam, and it awaited his fulfillment in the greater story written by the author of life. When the time was fulfilled, the sinless Son of God came among us, not as one who deserved death, but as the righteous one who alone had no impression of sin upon his soul. Contrary to the Arizol, this wasn't Cordivero, it was none other than our Messiah Jesus. And in a mystery beyond the wisdom of the sages, Jesus bore our curse on another tree, the cross outside Jerusalem. And so Saint Paul proclaims in Galatians 3, verse 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having becoming a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. And there on the cross, the curse of death that was brought to all through Adam's ancient disobedience, was taken up and exhausted in the sinless body of Jesus. He was hanged on a tree, not for his own sin, but for ours, that through his death we might receive the inheritance that Adam lost. That is life with God, forgiven, restored, and blessed forever. And so the Arizol was correct to see in this Deuteronomy passage that it was foreshadowing the death of a righteous soul. But it is foreshadowing the death of our Messiah, becoming a curse for us, so that we might be forgiven, restored, and blessed forever. All right, we will end the text there for today. That was Ki Tetse when you go out. Next week we'll talk about Kitavo when you come in, right? So today we exhaled. Next week we'll inhale. And we'll talk about the implications of Kitavoing in the month of Ill. Um, you can feel free to do that again. The idea would be you'd get one of these for each week for the 54 portions, uh, and then you would be uh, you know, have the time where you kind of have the material that's kind of like the lecture, if you will, but then it has time for group discussion and so forth, as well as things for you during the week. Uh some good, some good audio and video resources that is are put out by the the individuals that put this together. So if you want to come check that out, please do so. And we'll have more information for you next week, including how to get signed up with that uh so that we know what to expect coming in October. Let's close with a blessing. Baruchata Adanai Notain Hatara. Blessed are you, Lord God, who has given to us the gift that is the Torah. Amen. Shlum, shlum, go in peace. Hi everyone. Thank you for engaging this teaching. You know, we at Emmanuel 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 you, and we want you to use it however you see fit. Also, if you feel motivated or desire to support future teachings, you can do so with the donate button at the bottom of our teaching page. That's found at immlutheran.org forward slash teaching. Again, thank you for participating in our teachings here and hope to see you or engage with you somehow, someway, somewhere. God bless.