The Garden Within | KI TAVO כִּי־תָבוֹא - Portion 50

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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

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SPEAKER_01 0:19

All right, good evening, everyone, Heir of Tove. Welcome to the Garden Within as we continue our journey through uh the Torah and its yearly cycle. Um, before we get started officially with that, I do want to take care of a couple of other items that may be of interest to you. Uh, first is uh there is uh a new book called The Art of Becoming King David. Uh I would say only choose to read this if you are prepared to have your Sunday school image of David challenged, uh, because that's what this book does. Uh so if you're not one who uh, or if you're one who does not like to have their feathers ruffled and wants to keep what you were taught as a five-year-old, then don't read it and keep that going, all right? Um uh but this is a much more actual honest appraisal of the text. Uh, you know, uh recently I was very privileged to um have a course at Yale under uh a world-renowned Hebrew scholar, and so we spent the time just in the Hebrew of 1 Samuel, uh, first and 2 Samuel. And doing that, I saw things that I'd never seen before or come to terms with before. Uh 1 Samuel, right, 17, David kills Goliath. 2 Samuel, it tells us someone else kills Goliath. What do you do with that, right? What is how is that happening? Uh or how do we deal with David, an adulterer, a murderer, a polygamist, but he's a man after God's own heart? What does that mean, right? What does that phrase in Hebrew really mean? Uh and so it becomes honest with it. It becomes honest also with David's motives. Uh, the idea that he was just this nonchalant shepherd boy playing his musical instrument and all of a sudden he becomes king uh is actually not what the text says, just maybe what you've been told. But when you get honest and follow literally verse by verse, you see he very much wanted to be king. Like he absolutely wanted to be king. Uh, and his motives and all of that are driven by that desire. Uh, and so how do we reconcile that and what does that look like? Uh and so uh I enjoyed writing it, uh, I enjoyed kind of wrestling with those things, but only read it if you're okay with having that. Um uh they're 10 bucks if you are interested. Uh I have a few up here. I can always go straight across and grab more. Um, but if you're interested in that, uh you can grab one after class. And then second, I want to talk about uh October. Um, what's the actual start date in October? Do you know? Or October 5th uh is when a new cycle of Torah will start, you know, back in Bereshit in Genesis. Uh and this year we're doing things a little bit differently, hoping in a way that will uh bless everybody, um, including myself. Uh for 17 years in a row, I've taught Torah. Uh and I want to kind of take a different direction personally, where maybe throughout the year uh I just do like a six-week series on something, like whether that's the symbolism in the book of Revelation or whether that's uh the book of Hebrews, but something that's short term uh as well as continue to research and write. Uh, but I also want Torah study to continue. And so Tom and Kate Southern uh have agreed to partner with First Fruits of Zion uh to do what's called the Torah Club. Uh and this year's Torah Path, uh, it's called the Narrow Path. There's this sheet uh at the door. Uh also if you want to come look at some of the material for it, uh, but each week you get uh a nice booklet, about 25 pages, uh, with uh breaking down that whole week's parasha or portion uh in the Torah uh from a very Messiah-centered, very Christ-centered perspective. Uh many ways, what I've been able to see of it, if you liked the Sun and the Scriptures, it's a similar vein to that. It's different uh with different emphases and so forth, but it's a similar vein uh to that, looking at uh ways that that week's Torah portion ties into what Jesus was teaching, what Jesus was doing, what Jesus was fulfilling. Uh, and so you're really bringing together both the Torah and the Word made flesh and Messiah. Uh, and and that's uh again the narrow path. And on the sheet gives you a little QR code where you can register when it says it's a Torah club in Macomb. Uh that's that's us. And uh you would be after you register or say you're interested, some point Tom will probably get it or email you back and so forth. And you can also talk to Tom and Kate about it. I'll have them come up after class. Um but the information's there. It does cost $80 for the year, which is less than $2 a week. But again, each week you get a nice booklet, and you can come look at the first week's booklet so you can see what it is. It's really good stuff, and it's definitely worth keeping. Like it'll be something, it'll be a nice commentary set when you're done. Uh, but you also get the with that, you get the audio version of it. So you can listen to it in your car or when you're exercising, when you're walking. You can listen. A lot of times I like to listen to books while I'm actually reading the physical copy uh because it helps me kind of internalize it more because I'm not only hearing it, but I'm seeing it and so forth. You would have that. And it also comes with weekly uh video supplements that you would be given links to where uh experts in the field of Torah and Messianic Judaism and so forth speak to that week's portion. You would be given access to that uh and as well as the weekly meeting uh here at a manual uh that goes through it. So I think it's a great program. Uh in my previous congregation, we did Torah Club. Uh people really enjoyed it, grew uh through it. Uh and so after class, uh you can come up here again, look at what the first week's booklet will look like uh to give you a sample of that. Uh get the flyer and so forth. There's also uh a little promo video I'll show now uh that kind of engages it a little bit. What's your whistle for it? So if you're interested and want to know a little more, you can stick around afterwards. There's uh some cards up here too, brochures. Uh come check that out, uh, talk with Tom and Kate, uh, or you can email me. Uh but I think it'll be a great, a great thing to start the beginning of October. Uh, I think if you do it, you'll be glad you did. And again, the the resources that you'll be able to keep, you'll always then have handy uh a nice reference for Genesis through Deuteronomy, like on your shelf. So that'd be a great thing. All right. So with all that preliminary stuff, let's get started with the blessing before the study of Torah. Then we'll dive into where we're at uh in this week's uh Torah portion. Let's pray. Mbaruchata danay elhenum melakoy lam ashekiti shanubomisfita vesivanu le sok bidivre Torah. Blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with his commandments and has commanded us to be immersed to the words and the matters of Torah. Amen. All right, so uh this week is portion number 50 of the Torah's 54 portions. So obviously we're getting close to the end, which is why October 5th, we get to kind of start all over again in Genesis. Uh this week's portion, number 50, is called Kitavo. Uh and it covers Deuteronomy chapter 26, verse 1, and goes through chapter 29, verse 8. Uh again, Deuteronomy 26 begins that 50th portion of the Torah with these words. It says, Then it shall be when you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance. And in the Hebrew, the words for when you enter is ki tavo. The Torah portion begins with laws regarding the firstfruits and ties. And that's where we're going to spend most of our time this evening, actually, is looking at the idea of firstfruits, but from that garden perspective of, well, okay, I don't live in the land of Israel. There is no tabernacle or temple for me to bring my firstfruits offering to. So there's really no way on the Peshat level that it seems I'm going to be able to fulfill this. Yet, you know it's God's word, you know it's inspired, you know it's without error, you know it's eternal. So, what could it possibly mean for a 21st-century American living in Macomb, Michigan, or wherever you find yourself? Uh, that's where we rely on the Remez and the Dirache and the Sod to kind of peel back the layers of the onion. And we're going to do that by looking at this idea of first fruits and discuss that. Uh, but after it goes uh and discusses the laws of first fruit, it's in ties, uh, has Moses talking covenant renewal. Uh, and then Moses recites a series of blessings that are the natural result of the people if they make their proper connections, which are outlined for them, as well as again what are called curses, but are really the natural consequences of when you disobey God, ignore God, go against God's will, go against God's design, go against God's creation. Uh, there are just natural consequences for that. Uh, the fancy Hebrew uh word that pops up in your Bible and gets translated into English for all of that is curses. But it's not so much God cursing you as you cursing yourself by your choices of disobedience and pride and ego and so forth. Uh, and so Moses kind of outlines what living in covenant looks like and what living out of covenant looks like. All right. And so that's the portion uh of Kitavo. Uh, but let's now dive in, and uh I think our good first topic here will be the importance of joy. Um, and uh it's actually a very important part of Kitavo. It's also, again, if you're wanting to live in the time, right? Live within the times of the Torah and so forth. That's kind of a focus to be thinking about through the week is um where is joy in my life? Where am I deriving my joy? What does joy even mean? How is joy different than happiness? And in um where where it where is joy coming from in my life? So joy is a big concept, and Kitavo begins with the commandment to bring the first fruits of one's produce to the tabernacle. And so it says uh in Deuteronomy 26, verse 1 It will be when you enter the land that the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, that you shall take of the first of every fruit, and you shall put it in a basket, and go to the place for them originally, the tabernacle, eventually Jerusalem and the temple, but go to the place that the Lord your God will choose. And so after bringing the first fruits in, what is described in the Mishnah, that it's to be uh when they were to when they brought their first fruits, it was supposed to be this very joyous uh celebration, this joyous procession uh to the place of offering, and that they would recite words of thanksgiving, they would recite praises to God and psalms praising God. Uh, and it describes it this way in the Talmud or in the Mishnah and Bikarim. You shall be glad with all the goodness that the Lord your God has given you. That was something that was kind of an antiphon uh antiphon for them to recite as they were bringing their first fruits. Uh later in the portion, the Torah discusses the consequences the people will face if they do or do not listen and follow God's connections. Uh this section is often referred to as the blessings and the curses. But near the end of the curses, the Torah provides a reason for why this sorry state may come to be. All right, after it kind of lists what we would call the curses, it actually gives a reason why that would happen. And I think the reason is somewhat surprising. All right. It's given in Deuteronomy 28, verse 47. It says, Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and goodness of heart. Right? It wasn't because they didn't serve God, and you'll see that when you look into the prophets, you'll see that they continue to go to the temple, they continue to offer sacrifices, they continue to observe the holy days, uh, they checked all of the boxes, but God still spit them out of his mouth and uh was very upset with them. Why? Because they did not do it with joy and goodness in their heart, right? And so um that's again something the very practical to think about uh this week, right? Look at that verse and be like, what do I do in my religious service? What do I do in my faith walk? What do I do, but I don't really do with joy or with uh a purity about it, right? I'm doing it because uh eases my guilty conscience, I'm doing it because my spouse would get off my back, I'm doing it because it makes me look like a good person, I'm doing it because it makes me feel like a good person, right? But how much of what you do is because when your relationship with God and his word, because you do it with joy, right? Um, and that's you know, often uh I think what an individual should look for in a pastor or a teacher or a mentor, uh, is that does this individual, whatever you're wanting them to guide you in, teach you, mentor you with, do they do it with joy? Don't not just because they're good at it, right? Not just because, you know, it may help you, but uh do they do it because they love it? Do they have a passion for it, right? Because that's actually what you really want to catch from them. You want to catch their passion, you want to catch their excitement, all the minutiae and all the details and all the facts. You'll be able to learn, right? You'll be able to learn with or without them, but uh, you can't you can't learn like a passion. You just gotta be part of it and experience it and witness it and see the fruits of it. Um, and so at the end of the curses, it's it's just a powerful thing to think about that this is why God says things will go south. It's Moses being prophetic. Part of Deuteronomy is Moses is a prophet, and he's speaking about what will happen once they enter into the land. And he speaks of a time where they'll be exiled, where they'll be uh kicked out of the land, right? You can think about Babylon, you can think about later with Rome, but there'll be a time where they're the land, as the Bible would say, spits them out. Uh, and this is this is the reason. It also reminds me of a story that I know I've told not only this year, but I tell it most every time I ever teach Torah uh in different portions because I think it's fitting, not only here, but fitting for like changing our perspective on matters. Uh the story is how a man once came to his teacher, his Rebbe, his pastor, and he complained how sad and how depressed he was because of a whole series of setbacks, right? And if I were telling the big story, I would relay some of those setbacks and so forth. But the the teacher who knows this individual well ends up explaining to him that it's actually the opposite that's the case, right? He's not sad because all of these bad things or these unfortunate things have happened to him. Rather, uh the setbacks were happening because he was so downtrodden, he was so pessimistic, he was so negative, his attitude stunk, right? And he had no joy within him. Um that might be where it's worth you this week, looking up the Hebrew word for joy, which is simca, S-I-M-C-H-A, and really explore from a biblical perspective what joy is. It's not about being happy. You can have joy even in the midst of some of the most challenging, painful, gut-wrenching periods of your life. You can still have joy because it's not really an emotion and it's not really connected to happiness. It's it's something else, it's something much deeper. And the Rebbe's like, look, you lack joy, you lack passion, right? And because you're always looking for the negative, because you're always a Debbie Downer, because you're always finding what's wrong with the situation, well, of course everything's gonna seem horrible, right? And then he's like, that's your issue. And I think that's worth again thinking about this week as we look at Kitavo. Serving God with joy and always trying to see um uh what God is doing, right? Those kairos moments, what God is up to, how God is at work. Um, you know, there was a fellow Lutheran pastor that uh I appreciate quite a bit, uh, been able to do some some work with him. Uh, even wrote a recommendation that's in the in the front of his book. But, you know, his idea, his name's Greg Finke. What is his idea is is God's already up to something. You know, Jesus is already up to something. He's already doing something, not only in your community, at your work, in your school, at your church. Jesus is already busy doing stuff. So you don't have to figure out what do I do, right? You just join him. He's already up to something. Just join in with passion and excitement and enthusiasm. Just join into what he's already doing. Um, and that can change our existence, it can change the way we view every day and can give vibrant and meaningful uh experiences for us. When we harvest the fruits of our labors, uh we can relate to our success in one of two ways, right? Moses war tells them, you know, and warns them when you bring your first fruits and you realize what you have, you can attribute it solely to yourself, your talents, right, and how you've come a long way and how you've done these great things and so forth. Or you can respond by thanking God for blessing us with the wisdom and the abilities to achieve these things. The secret of joy lies in nullifying the ego's natural tendency to lay claim to all the credit. So instead, we must learn to rejoice in the blessings that God has given to us. And in truth, when the ego is given free reign, your ego will know no limit to its glory, and it will always feel that it has something due. And because of this, it will never be satisfied. And so the commandment to take the first fruits contains a beautiful illusion, a beautiful teaching for us to how we can attain a joyous state of mind. In the verse uh where it says, And you shall put your first fruits in the basket, the Hebrew word for basket is tene. Alright? It's tene. The word, when you add up its letters, its three letters, has a numerical value of 60. 60 has a significant meaning in Hebraic thought when it comes to the fullness of something or the nullification of something, and I'm going to explain that. When you also do Gamatria, you can not only add up the letters of the word, but then you can also add one for the word itself, which then gives us the idea of this is 60, but it's also can be understood as 61. And here we find an allusion to something in the Halakha. That is, you know, when you're reading through scripture and it tells you like you can't mix these two things and so forth, when do you know it's not a mixture anymore? And according to the Torah mindset, it's a 60 to 1 ratio. Uh, just like uh sleep in Hebraic thought is considered one-sixtieth of death. Right? That's why even in monasteries, Christian monasteries, right before they go to bed, they do a prayer service called Complin, which is really praying for a peaceful death. It's reading scriptures that make you think about death, it makes you think about your own mortality, because you're to view kind of going to bed, going to sleep, as dying. And that has Hebraic roots. Sleep is one sixtieth of death, and that's also why the first prayer service of the morning is all about resurrection, because you're reminding yourself of the resurrection. It's as if you have one-sixtieth been resurrected. Or if you have two ingredients, once they reach the ratio of 60 to 1, the one that's the one has been nullified, and it's considered no longer present or relevant. And so the basket equaling 60 represents a person's ability to nullify his or her own ego or their lust in bringing their first fruits to God. What they're bringing to God is the 60, right? The fullness of it all. But it's also hinting at with the one, and also the Hebrew word for the pronoun I is 61. The same letters, when interchange, spell the word I in or nothingness. That is, when you can nullify your ego, that's the position you're in. And so what all of this is hinting at is this idea. The one who puts his first fruits in a basket is in effect nullifying his ego and reaching the level of selflessness, which is the secret of true joy. And Jesus speaks about this, right? Uh, you know, if you lose your life for you know my sake, you know, you will have life, right? Well, how will I have life by losing life? That's what he's talking about. And all of that there is me taking the Gematria and the Hebrew wordplay going on and just putting it into English for you. Um, but from a Hebraic perspective, when the rabbis look at that verse on bringing your basket, that's what they're really reading. The one who puts his first fruits in a basket, right? You're giving your best to God. You're whatever, and that's not just ties or that's the best of your intellect, excuse me, the best of uh your efforts, the best of your thoughts, the the best of whatever it is, right? When you bring that in its basket, right, in its vessel, that's you, and you can nullify the ani, the I, you reach the level of Ian, nothingness, which means you've killed the self, you've died to the self, as Jesus would say, so that you can now live for God. It's also the very first beatitude, right? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Once you empty your vessel of all that's you, you now have this empty vessel that can be filled with the things of our Messiah and the things of our God. All right. So that's kind of getting us thinking about first fruits, but I want to keep going with it because it has a very practical application for us. So dedicating our first fruits, like you and I, how can we, even though there's no temple standing, and me, if it were, it would be in Jerusalem, and chances are you and I aren't going to be able to go over there and bring a sacrifice to it, but even now we we can't. So from a spiritual technology point of view, when you when you really look at, it's an important question to always ask. Don't ask when you read the Bible, what were they thinking, but ask, you know, what did they think they were thinking? Like go one deeper. What did they think they were accomplished? Don't go, what were they doing? Rather, ask, what did they think they were doing? When they would do this, what did they think they were doing? That's what's still alive, that's what's still relevant, and that's what in Messiah and in his fulfilling of the law enables us to do. We can still do what they were doing, even if we don't do it in the same way. You know, a classic example I use for this is I remember when I was real young and my dad owned a business, and I remember when they got their very first fax machine. You remember those? And they had that weird paper that you know would fade after like a week or whatever. So you you better learn to make a copy of your fax because they wouldn't exist in very much time and it would curl up. Uh the print quality was horrible. But at the same time, my dad could contact his other office that was in a another state, 800 miles away, and say, I'm gonna send you the invoice or I'm gonna send you the instructions or whatever, you know, and instantly through the telephone it would appear, right? Well, probably most of us don't use a fax machine anymore. But do we still do the same thing? Yeah. Most likely now it's what? A PDF, right? Can you send that to me as a PDF? And even our phones, right? You can hold your phone over a piece of paper and it'll scan it, even crop it, all kinds, make it all fancy, save it as a PDF, and boom, you can either email it or you can text it, right? But we're actually doing the same thing as the fax. And that the fax was doing the same thing as snail mail, right? It just took longer, but you were still getting information on a piece of paper from this location to people in that location. And so what was really happening never changed. How you were getting it done, it changed over time, and as technology changed. Same thing with much of what you see in the Old Testament, right? It's spiritual technology. Their equipment, right? They had Commodore 64s, right? Uh, you know, Apple IIEs. Now we have, you know, MacBooks and you know, Microsoft Surfaces, and right, far superior technology, but in the end, we're kind of doing the same thing, right? Uh, and that's gonna be what we're gonna see with first fruits. Saying we can still tap into this, okay? So in Chasidut, the more mystical approach to scripture, or kind of the garden approach, firstfruits represents much more than just what's on the Peshat in your Torah as just the annual agricultural offering. It is that. It absolutely was that for the people of God when they had a tabernacle and when they had a temple. Um, but it's more than just the annual agricultural offering. Instead, or in addition to that, the first fruits symbolize the first of anything. The first of anything. So that's the initial thought, right? That's how, again, this can be very practical for you. The first time this week, when you hear news of the, you know, it's brand new to you, make your first thought positive. Instead of like, hey, Steve, I'd like you to meet your new coworker, Billy. Make sure your first thought is, oh man, I hate co-workers or whatever. Make your first thought like, Billy's gonna be awesome. I'm gonna enjoy having Billy around. Billy's gonna be a great help, right? That's a first fruit offering to God. It's your first thought about that individual, right? And you can offer that to God. Don't worry about in the end if Billy ends up being, you know, a felon escaped from uh the state prison and on the run and so forth. That's not what you're doing with your first thought, right? You deal with facts as they come up, but your first thought you offer to God. Make it a good one, make it a positive one, make it something worthy of offering to God, just as the fruit you would offer in the agricultural offering, right? You wouldn't give them the rotten stuff, you wouldn't give them the stuff that you know fell to the ground. You gave him the best, right? You gave him the best of the best. And so whether that's your initial thought, whether it's your initial intention, like, why are you doing this? Why are you making this decision? Like, what's the first reason for it? Doesn't mean there aren't other reasons, but what's your first? And so that could be something you could work on in journaling or in conversation with people uh this week that you have spiritual discussions with. Are they joyful? Are they positive? Are they worthy of offering to God? Uh could be your first inspiration that comes to mind in a host of situations, not to mention one's initial gut feeling or instinctive response to various circumstances. The more we have clarified and refined our consciousness, the more we can even trust our initial reactions, our initial thoughts, our first insights. The first words of a Torah observant person that they will speak every morning, and I've shared this with you. I've encouraged you not to do it literally from the Hebrew or the literal English translation, to do a version of it. But someone who takes seriously the Torah worldview, the first time they gain kind of consciousness for the day, before their feet get out of bed, before they go to the bathroom, before they do anything, they will say, Mode ni la fanecha, melechaveam, shhehecha zarta banish mati, bechim laba munatecha, right? I give thanks to you, living and kernel king. Right. Soon as I have consciousness, I want my first thought to be thanksgiving and praise to God. I give thanks to you, living and eternal king, that you have resurrected my soul. Remember, sleeps 160 of death, that you've brought me alive to this day, right? Uh, you know, that you've given me a purpose for today, or that's why I'm alive, that's why I'm waking up. And then Rabbah Munatecha, right? Great is your faithfulness. Like, kick the day off with something like that. It doesn't have to be that exact quote. It's not mandated as to be that exact quote, right? That's just a liturgical form. But it try to make your first conscious thought of like, okay, I'm up, like I'm I'm actually up, I'm not just rolling over, whatever. I'm I'm getting up. Immediately train yourself to make that some kind of thanksgiving, some kind of praise, some kind of recognition that God is part of your life and God is going to do something in your life today, and you're God's gonna do something through you today, and and make that a first fruit offering, right? Uh it's a simple, but it's a profound thing to give expression of thanksgiving, acknowledging God's compassion, God's strength. Uh, it's all designed to help us start the day on the right foot. Dedicating our first conscious thoughts and our first words of the day to praising God is like bringing your first fruits. And those who pray morning prayer, the first thing in the morning before becoming involved in the more worldly, but yes, necessary things and pursuits, what they are doing is dedicating their first fruits to God. And they are actually fulfilling the mitzvah, the connection of firstfruits. That's really what they thought they were doing. They thought they were coming to God and giving to God their first and their best. And anytime you do that, you are fulfilling the actual spiritual intent of this commandment from the Torah. And the morning is a great way to do it, right? A great way to start your day as opposed to like, oh man, your day's gonna be horrible and all that. Like, even if you know it's gonna be a long day and a day filled with appointments you'd rather not keep, and people maybe that you rather not see, right? No one's denying the reality of those things, but you can still begin with the first thought. I didn't say every thought after, I said the first thought can be modeani, right? I give thanks to you. I'm alive, right? And I you have a purpose for me, and you're gonna do some things today that I can't even imagine, right? Start with the first. You can have the other thoughts, and then it doesn't even mean they're wrong or sinful or bad. Just don't start with them. Don't lead with them, right? Lead with your best, lead with what you give to God. Keeping on this theme with uh what we'll call Torah-colored glasses. Uh, in last week's portion, which was known as Kitetse, uh, there was a portion in that uh week's teaching, or in that week's part of the Torah reading, uh, about the commandment to build a guardrail around the roof of a new house. And what that kind of means on a deeper level, it was speaking to the fact that we need to have a disciplined action uh in our life, right? Like when you go on a roof and you have like a rooftop terrace, as homes in the ancient Near East did, right? Well, what might happen if people get sleepy or maybe people drink a little too much, or it's dark and they really aren't paying attention and it's a rooftop terrace? What might happen? They might fall off. So the Torah on a Peshat level is like, hey, you're gonna have a rooftop terrace, maybe put some guardrails up, right? I mean, that's just some good advice and a good way not to get sued, right? And so forth. But the garden perspective would say, all right, as we're in the month of Al, and as we're coming to Rosh Hashannan, as we're coming to the new year, as we're coming to that time when the books are opened and where we're going through the days of repentance and the days of awe, right? The house, you're the house, right? Put some guardrails up. Right? So not only that you don't fall off, but that maybe others don't get in, right? Put some guardrails up. And so that was in last week's portion. Now, the idea that without discipline and a workable plan, you'll inevitably fall off the roof. Um, the Balsham Tove taught a similar message for this week's portion uh with the image of the basket again, uh, in which the first fruits were placed. He taught that the three letters that make up the Hebrew word for basket, Tene, so you can see the three letters there, are an acronym for three Hebrew words: Tamim, Nekudot, and Otiot, right? And those three letters, uh, it's an acronym. Uh, and what these are is the Ta'mim are the notes that the Torah is chanted to. So if you open up uh Hebrew Bible, um uh I call it the Hebrew Bible for dummies, it's the one that has all the markings and vowels and all that stuff, it'll have some cantillation marks. And so the Tamim is the melody that you sing the Torah. Torah is never read, the Torah is always sung, and it's sung to specific melodies. Um, and and again, there's familiar to Jewish people as amazing graces to Christians or how great thou art. Like they hear it and they'll go, that's portion kitavo, that's the melody for kitavo, uh, and so forth. And and so that's what tamim is. Nekudot are the vowels, the little vowel markers. Hebrew doesn't have vowels per se, but see the little three dots underneath those two sets of letters, those are cheater codes that tell you that's an eh vowel. So tene, right? It helps you pronounce because technically Hebrew doesn't have them. Uh, but nekudot are kind of those vowel markers, and the otiot are the letters themselves, right? That's what the Hebrew word for letter is, is otiot. Uh so in essence, these are the three elements comprising the biblical text, right? You read it or you see it and you sing it uh to the melody and so forth, uh and you know how to pronounce it. Since human beings usually want to take sole credit for their accomplishments, the Torah has commanded us to place the first fruits in a basket. That is a receptacle that reminds us of the Torah, so that we might reign in our egos and recognize God as the source of all material and spiritual bounty. The Torah and its system of mitzvot, its connections, are designed to constantly remind us of our connection to God, so that we do not lose the proper perspective on this relationship. So the Bal Shem Tov taught that we should learn to take our thoughts, our speech, and our action. So that's how he moved Tamim, Nekudot, and Otiot. He transferred that to thought, speech, and action, and placed them in the letters, the vowels, and the song of Torah, which on a practical level means incorporating the wisdom of the Word of God in all of our endeavors. Never think that something you're doing doesn't have scripture or God or your spiritual life, isn't relevant to it. Everything you do, everything you do. That's a real Torah worldview where you see everything as spiritual. I had a friend uh uh who wrote a pretty popular book called Everything Is Spiritual, and that's where he got it from. He got it from studying with his uh rabbinic friends. But when you realize everything is spiritual, that's what the Bausham Tobes want you to see, right? Thought, speech, action, all coming, the letters, the vowels, the song of Torah, everything you do should exude from the word of God, exude from your prayer life, your devotional life, right, your thought processes. Placing the first fruits of our labors in the basket of the Torah is similar to wearing Torah-colored glasses or Bible-colored glasses, so that all our life experiences are refracted through the lens of God's word. And the Torah portion known as Shoftiam, it talks about how in the world to come, in the time of Messiah, that that's actually part of living in that world, in the world to come, is that we're still engaging with God's word and God's teachings and so forth. Uh, we and we can draw that future reality into the present when we continually dedicate ourselves, especially again, our first fruits, when we bring that Tanae, that basket. And so the Balashim To was just creating uh uh a device for his students to remember the principle. So he took Tane, basket, and he said, remember thought, speech, action, all of that should be in the basket that you present to God, everything you do. The Torah portion this week, in addition to the first fruits, um talks about the people of God being a treasure. And so the Hebrew word the Torah uses for treasure is seguula, and it comes from the same root as the word for uh a certain vowel, the seagull. So if we go back to this word, you see those two dots, the triangle dots? That's a vowel that lets you know it's an eh sound. Well, that triangle of dots is called a seagull, right? That's a seagull. Uh and it's related to the Hebrew word secular. And so I want to now look at the important connection between the number three. And God's people being this treasure. According to the more mystical tradition, the segol, right? Those three dots that tell us if when it's under a letter that under that consonant, you have the sound after that consonant. But it's spiritual. So I want you to think of this as three columns. So the upper right dot, I want you to think as the right column. We can get fancy and give you the Hebrew term sephirot. Right? That represents Kessid, God's Kessid. It's unfailing, unconditional love. You know, the Greek agape. The right, I mean the left column or the left dot is the Hebrew word gevorah. It means boundaries, judgment, the ability to say no, uh, to say not yet, or that's not a good idea, right? It's Kessid doesn't know that. All Kessid knows is turn the water hose on and let it flow. Gavora says, let's put some judgment to that. Let's think about that. Is that the best thing? And maybe we'll say, no, it's not, or it knows sometimes love is not just saying yes and giving, but love is withholding, right? It it has the more restrained. So you have these two extremes, and so that dot in the middle of them is the middle column. It's also called tiferit in Hebrew, right? It means beauty, and then it's it's knowing how to balance these things, right? You need both of these in your life, right? And you need the wisdom to know when to operate on which plane. Okay, and so going back to the Bal Shem Tovans teaching on vowels, they're not just vowels, right? I remember I it must have been 10 years into learning Hebrew, speaking Hebrew, reading Hebrew, studying with a rabbi for over a decade. And uh in actual Hebrew, those vowel points won't be there. And so I thought I was gonna be a really cool guy, you know, egotistical and be like, I don't I don't read the vowels, Rabbi. I I know how to read Hebrew, like the way real real Jews read Hebrew. We don't need the vowels. And he said, You absolutely need the vowels, but he said, not so that you can pronounce them. He's like, that's the soul of the letters. The letters, the otio, it's just the body. The vowels are the soul. And so he's like, if anything, you just need to see them because it's giving you the energy of that letter and that word. And I'm like, so it took you a decade for you to tell me then? He's like, Well, you weren't ready to hear that, right? Um, so when you read a letter like that, these little points underneath are tuning you in to be thinking these kind of thoughts about that word and about that passage. And as you can see in other ones, you know, you have other shapes, right? You got the two vertical dots, you got one that looks like a T, comets and so forth. They all have similar kinds of deeper meanings. And so when I look at Segula, uh, I know how to read it without the vowels. That's what I was telling my rabbi. And he's like, Yeah, but you're not getting the energy of it. You need to know why, you know, the uh schwa there is there and why the comets is there, right? And what's that, how is that vivifying that word, right? And that's also what Adam was doing when he decided to name the animals. He wasn't like dog. C-A-T sounds cool together, cat, right? What he was doing was creating their essence, and these are the things that create the essence, all right. So these these these the Segol is important, and they're also associated with the three patriarchs: Abraham on the right, Isaac on the left, Jacob, and the sinner who balances it. These are the archetypal souls of the people of God. These are the spiritual founding fathers and the source uh of our who we are as people of God. And when you read the Torah, you find out in Leviticus that these are broken down into three groups as well: the Kohenim, the Leviim, and the Yisraelim, that is, the priests, the Levites, and the Israelites. So next time you're reading through your Torah and you see that threefold division, you need to think this column. Because that's really what it's teaching you. It really isn't about the priests, the Levites, and the people, right? It's teaching you about Kesset, Gavorah, and Teferit. It's giving you a deeper idea of it. So we got this idea involved with God calling his people a treasure, a Segula from Sigol. Right? You're really getting some deep rabbinic teaching that, right? Takes us then to Ecclesiastes 4.12. A cord braided from three strands will not quickly be broken. When we apply this verse to the three patriarchs, which is how it's understood. It's not a wedding passage. I'm sorry to tell you that. And yes, some of my greatest wedding sermons have been on this passage. And I have to do so in the hope that I'm in the back of my head. I have my rabbi going, stop it, because that's not a wedding verse. It's about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's about Kesid, Gavor, and Teferit, right? It's a much, which you can you can eventually bring it into a marriage, but it's it's it's bigger than marriage, right? It's something bigger. Um, the explanation is there had to be three patriarchs, right? And the people had to be divided into three, because three will not quickly be broken. And the rabbis even relate the verse to various prophecies of the people of God and how they will never be broken. What other entity has been able to withstand persecution and plots of annihilation than the people of God all through time and even now? All we have more martyrs for the faith now than in any point in history. And yet the people of God, the word of God, the Messiah, never will be broken, right? And then once you begin to understand this three, you'll see it come up in the teachings of Jesus. How many close disciples does he have? Three, right? Peter, James, and John. That's your little triangle, right? Um, three days. How many times does he ask God to take away the cup from him in Gethsemane? Three times. How many times do the disciples fall asleep? Three times, right? John 21. It's the third resurrection appearance, post-resurrection appearance. And how many times does he ask Peter, Do you love me? How many times does he say, Feed my sheep? Three, three, three, right? You're gonna see it all over the scripture. And now, you know, it's coming back to what I thought was just cheater code and for people who couldn't really read Hebrew to help them read Hebrew. It wasn't, right? It's something bigger than that. Um so the Talmud categorizes when God gave uh the word of God on Mount Sinai to Moses uh in the following manner. This is from Tractate Shabbat. Blessed is the merciful one who gave our Torah, which is divided into three divisions: the Torah, the prophets, and the writings. Sometimes you might hear that called the Tanakh, which is an acronym for Torah, Neveim, Kettevim, the Torah, the prophets, the writings. Jesus will refer to that. It often gets translated as uh the law, the writings, and the Psalms, but it's the threefold division. Um, to a people divided in three divisions, the Kohain, the Levi, the Israel, through a third child, Moses was the third child of Yochavat after Miriam and Aaron on the third day of abstinence during the third month of the year. And so again, it's just hinting at this idea that all throughout scripture you see the importance of three. And what that's really getting at is this balance of Kesed and Gavor and beauty, the balance of it. You think about the cross, right? The cross is that right, left, and it's got a center column. Right? This is one of the things my rabbi reads. That's a cross, right? If you draw the columns, that's a cross. If you connect the dots, what do you have on the cross? Unbounding love and the justice of God, finding beautiful harmony, right? Through the manifestation of the Messiah, right? Hence on the third day, right? It's oh it's it's just amazing. It's just amazing how it clicks. And so looking even at this Talmudic statement, it strengthens the association between God's treasured people, the Sagol, right? The triangle, and the number three. And on a deeper level, the triad of Israel, the Word of God, and God Himself are described in the Zohar as being fundamentally linked. It says, three bonds are bound together, the people of God, the word of God, and God Himself. That those three are bound, and that that's the ultimate meaning of that Ecclesiastes passage, right? The three that can't be broken: God, his people, and his word. And it echoes the sentiment from Ecclesiastes beautifully. So the rabbis interpret the verse to mean that God's people will never be broken. And here too they understand the verse to mean again, the people of God, the word of God, and God are internally bound together. Let's keep thinking on this idea of segulah from Segol, right? The triangle. Deuteronomy 26, verse 18. Also, today the Lord has proclaimed you to be his special people, his Am Segula in Hebrew. So, what is the meaning of God setting his people apart as his am Segula? Am A M in Hebrew means people, segula, again, that treasured, his treasured people, his treasured group. Rashi explains uh in the Kumish, Segulah means a cherished treasure, costly vessels and precious stones which the kings will stow away. Likewise, you, the people of God, will be treasured to him more than any or any more than anything else. The distinctiveness of a king's precious treasures is that they are stowed away. They are not intended for use. The costly vessels and precious stones, they don't fund the king's domestic programs, they don't fund the military campaigns, nor do they add beauty to his crown or his palace. They are collected and they are saved for no other purpose than their very being, for the king to simply own them and delight in them. That's what makes them a treasure, and specifically the king's treasure. Other people may not value them, other people may not see the value in it, but it's what if the house is on fire, that's what they're saving, right? That's what makes, that's what we are in God's eyes. In fact, the king's possession of national treasures, amassed simply for him to enjoy and owning them, is part of what makes him king. It contributes to his personal sense of kingship and eminence. And this is the significance of God setting apart his people as a treasured nation or a treasured group, that their preciousness transcends the purpose they serve. And certainly, though, the observance of God's connections and the peoples reveal throughout the word deeper concepts, but in the end, we are what God delights in just because. The essential identity of a believer is not the purpose that we serve, but the delight that we bring to God simply by existing. Like the hidden treasure of a king, every child of God's existence is a source of delight for God. And this comes before they ever fulfill his desire or will. Now, as we kind of wrap up Kitavo and think about it, I kind of want to put it in light of Messiah, bring it back home to our faith, followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Kitavo is a portion that radiates with messianic anticipation and the call to joyful, humble worship as God's treasured people. As Israel is instructed to bring their firstfruits with gratitude and joy, Messiah is revealed as the true firstfruits. And this is why Paul will say in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 20, but now Christ is risen from the dead and he has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. He's the first from the dead. Lazarus was resuscitated, but he died again. You think back to the ones Elijah or Elisha brought back, right? The young boy and so forth. They eventually died again, right? They did not resurrect, they were resuscitated. Messiah is the firstfruits from the dead. He is the one that has died, who has come back, never to die again. And so he is the firstfruits of the Father. In the Torah's command to rejoice in Deuteronomy 26, 11, we see the reflection of the joy Messiah brings to those reconciled to the Father. For the Messiah's resurrection is the pledge of all the goodness of God and all that he has promised. Followers of Jesus who love the Torah are called to cultivate a spirit of gratitude, acknowledging every harvest in life, whether small or great, is a gift from the Lord, and finding joy not in achievement, but find joy in the giver. Don't find joy in the achievement, find joy in the giver. And this counters the prideful ego and fosters the self-emptying humility that Jesus Himself modeled, Philippians 2, right? Who being in the very form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but still made himself of no reputation. A second powerful application emerges from the warning in Kitavo, Deuteronomy 28, verse 47. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart. The curse falls not merely for disobedience, right? That's not the issue. It falls because of joylessness in our obedience and in our religious spiritual walk. A word that should pierce us deeply. Life in Messiah transforms mere religious observance from drudgery to delight. For we see the commandments not merely as duty, but we see them as ways to connect with our God and to walk with Jesus by the Spirit. This is why Paul will say in Romans 8, verse 4, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. When we dedicate the firstfruits of our time, our attention, our words, our works, our thoughts, our motivations, when we dedicate those firstfruits to God, we emulate Jesus, the one who rose early to pray and gave the Father his first and his best. In Jesus, we are God's Am Segula, we are his treasured people. We're precious not merely for what we do, but because of whose we are. Our greatest joy is found not in our performance, but in the sure love of Jesus the Messiah, who delights in us, binds us to himself, binds us to the word, binds us to the Father, all with a cord that can never be broken. A true treasure set apart forever. All right, we will close there this evening. Since we were hit week 50 of the garden, I thought I would go a little deeper for you. Um kind of been moving along that path and just seeing the different ways you can dive into the text. And you know, when you think back to those little vowel points, those were parts of what Jesus called jots and tittles. When he said, not one jot or tittle of the Torah will pass away, he was referring to those little things. He was referring to those little triangle and the little T and the little two dots, right? Those all also have meaning. And so you've never exhausted unpacking the Word of God. I don't care how many times you've read it, I don't care how many times you've read King David. If you haven't noticed, there's a big problem between 1 Samuel 16 and 1 Samuel 17, because there is a major problem. If you've never noticed that, you haven't read the story. Yes, I have. No, you haven't, right? If you haven't spent the time to go, wow, Melech in Hebrew king has two Sagols. What's that trying to tell me, right? You then you've still got you still got plenty to do. That's one of the things I love about the Word of God. That's why it's captivated me for over 30 years. Um, and that's what I hope to pass on to you uh in Torah study is you're never done. You're gonna always turn the page, even on the most, especially on the most familiar passages. All right, we will close there, but if you want some Torah club information, we'll look at the first week's Torah portion booklet. Uh you can you'd get one of those each week. Uh some information, Tom and Kate will be up here. Answer any questions, get the handout that looks like that. It's got the QR code if you want to sign up for it. Um, looking like October 5th, we'll probably meet in ministry room three in the main building, but you'll get more instructions that. I think it's a little cosier and I think it'll be a little uh more fitting for Torah Club and kind of the goal we have for it of um, you know, I don't let you guys talk. All right, I talk, right? Toro Club will actually let you talk a little bit, all right? Uh ask questions or share your own insights and discoveries. I won't be bogarting all the time. So uh and I think Ministry Room 3 will get it set up nice. I think it'll be a little more comfortable environment and so forth. So uh stick around if you want some more information of that or grab the flyer. Uh if you want a Art of Becoming King David book, uh I have a few up here, but that's not a problem. There are plenty just across that I can go grab if we need more. All right, let's close with a blessing. Baruchata Adonai Notain Adarah. Blessed are you, Lord God, who has given to us the gift that is the Torah. Amen. Shlom shlom, go in peace. Hi, everyone. Thank you for engaging this teaching. You know, we and 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. So 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.