CHUKAT Passport to
Greater Understanding
Shabbat Shalom Kol
Yisrael. It is our pleasure to present this week's Torah Parsha commentary by
Nazarene Yisraelite Rabbi T. (Mordecai) Mitchell, Rabbi and Rosh Zaken of B'nai
Yeshurun Nazarene Yisraelite Synagogue, Kittanning, Pa., board member of the
Union of Nazarene Yisraelite Congregations. It is our sincere hope and prayer
that these commentaries encourage, inspire, and strengthen the body of Messiah
in Kol Yisrael. This week our Parsha is Chukat (ordinance of)
Bemidbar (Numbers) 19:1 to 22:1. Our Haftarah reading is Shof'tim
(Judges) 11:133. Our suggested B'rit Chadasha readings are: Yochanan (John)
3:19-21; 4:330, and 12:27-50 and Yehudah (Judah) all 25 verses. Please also
read Tehillim (Psalms) 51 and 106.
First I will do Torah, then I will understand
it.
Bemidbar 19:1 And
YHWH spoke to Mosheh and to Aharon, saying,
-
This is the
law of the Torah which YHWH has commanded, saying, 'Speak to the children of
Yisrael, that they bring you a red heifer, a perfect one, in which there is no
blemish and on which a yoke has never come.
We might ask, what is
a Chukh? (A singular form
of Chukat). In essence, a Chukh
is an
ordinance that seems, on the surface, to have no rhyme or reason, no specific
purpose, something that may be difficult to understand.
Some well meaning but misguided (or perhaps misled)
people seem to have the idea that there are things in the Bible that we simply
cannot understand, or that have no meaning or relevance for today, so why try to
understand them. But what we must realize is that every passage, every verse,
indeed every word in the Bible has relevance and is placed there for our
learning and understanding if we are willing to dig deeper.
There are many
things in Scripture, specifically in Chukat, that can be
understood only on the Sod or mystical level. Although the ordinances carried
out in Bemidbar 19 were carried out literally, it may be difficult to see their
deeper purpose.
In this chapter we read about the red heifer. Why did
the heifer have to be red and why perfect. Why were its ashes mixed with water
and hyssop and why was it burned with cedar wood?
In this Parsha we will not attempt to answer all
these questions. Rather, I would like to challenge our readers to research these
things for yourselves, a sort of homework assignment if you will.
We can begin by
looking up each word in the Strong's Concordance. Look up heifer,
red, ashes, cedar, and hyssop. When you have the meanings of the Hebrew
words, and related or root words and meanings, if you have access to a Gematria
book or software program, do a Gematria search on the value of each word. You
may do this on the first few verses of Chapter 19, or on the entire chapter,
depending on your available time and ambition. This should prove to be an
interesting exercise. Find out what you can and if you feel so inclined, I would
be interested to have you share your findings with me by
e-mail.
As an example,
let's try a short Gematria examination on the name of this Parsha,
Chukat (pronounced something like hoo-cot).
Chukat is spelled in Hebrew with three letters:
Chet, Gematria value 8;
Qoph, Gematria value
100; and Tav, Gematria value
500, giving a total value of 508.
Next, we will
consider just a few words or phrases that also have a Gematria value of 508.
(Because of the difficulty
and uncertainty of including actual Hebrew letters in e-mailings, we will use
only the English translations)
In Shemot (Exodus)
15:17 we have ...your inheritance and in Bemidbar
(Numbers) 14:20 we have ...I shall forgive. Next we should
ask, what are these two verses, related only through Gematria, telling us about
Chukat?
As we will see, there are physical acts that may in
some ways seem archaic, perhaps even meaningless, but that contain some of the
greatest lessons found in Scripture. For those who have been following the
weekly teachings, you will remember that we believe and teach that every Parsha
gives us a certain power or ability. What we must learn from Parsha
Chukat is that we all have a responsibility to do a spiritual
work. That work has the power to transform us. However, sometimes we miss some
obvious tools that help us carry out our mission.
I have suggested this exercise to challenge each one
of us to go beyond the mere reading of words and sentences. I believe that by
doing more in depth studies, and making them a regular practice, we will all be
strengthened in our Nazarene Yisraelite faith, our faith in our Messiah, in the
Two House message and the coming of the Kingdom of Yahweh to this earth. I urge
each reader to please try this if you are not already doing so. Allow the Word
of Yahweh to speak to you as you search out the hidden things (Iyob 11:6) of
His word.
Before going on,
there is one more thing of importance we must mention. My friend and brother in
the faith, Rabbi Edward Levi Nydle has said on several occasions:
First I will do Torah, then I
will understand it.
Rather than question if we should carry out certain
practices we should ask: How will this practice strengthen me spiritually? How
will it improve my life? What can I learn from it? (We will give a few examples
shortly). As we do the Torah we begin to grow.
During their
growing process, little children learn by doing, and by imitating their parents.
But most often, they do not understand the reason for the things they learn and
do. When they are taught good habits by their parents, they do not question the
motives or reasons for being taught to do things in a certain way -- they just
do them. As they grow older, they come to understand why we, for example, wash
our hands before eating, why we bathe frequently, or try to eat a balanced diet.
But while they are small, they do these things because their parents instruct
them to do so. So it is with Chukat. We may not always
understand why Yahweh wants us to do something a certain way at this stage of
our spiritual development. However, rest assured, providing we continue our
spiritual growth process, we will come to a better understanding by the very
doing of the Torah.
First I will do Torah, then I will understand it.
For a bird's eye view of Chapter 19, we should
understand that this chapter is about cleansing from dead works. Contact with
the dead makes one unclean. But water (think Mikveh) makes us
clean. Mikveh must be both a spiritual commitment and a physical act. We cannot
separate the physical from the spiritual.
Dead works are the wrongful religious practices and
doctrines that most we have learned to reject. However, there is more to this
chapter than meets the eye of the casual reader.
Please note the number of times the words
water bathe,and cleanse occur in
this chapter.
(In the ISR version,
water is used eight
times in Chapter 19. Eight, as we may know, is the number of new beginning.
Immediately after cleansing ourselves, Mikveh, we embark on a new beginning).
In verse 13 we read,
Anyone who touches the dead of a human being, and does not cleanse
himself, defiles the dwelling Place of YHWH. And that being shall be cut off
from Yisrael. He is unclean, for the water for uncleanness was not sprinkled on
him, his uncleanness is still upon him.
Considering this on the Sod level tells us that
contact or involvement with man made religious practices or beliefs makes us
unclean before Almighty Yahweh and we thereby defile His Holy Temple. We also
cut ourselves off from the people of Yahweh. In verse 14, we read that a dead
body contaminates all that is around it. The dead doctrines or traditions of
religion are contagious and their ability to contaminate the mind of others is
far reaching.
However, we must be careful what we deem man-made
and we must be careful what we label as tradition.
When it comes to traditions it seems there is much
confusion. (Again, we must keep in mind the difference between 'religion' and
'spirituality').
Yahshua our Messiah warned against certain traditions
in a number of places in the Brit Chadasha. One such instance is in MattithYahu
15:3 But He answering, said to them, Why do you also transgress the
command of Elohim because of your tradition.
In 2 Thessalonians 2:15, Rabbi Shaul (the Apostle
Paul) wrote: So, then brothers, stand fast and hold the traditions
which you were taught, whether by word or by our letter.
When it comes to any tradition, custom or practice we
need only ask a few simple questions. Is this causing me to circumvent Scripture
or does it help me to keep or understand Scripture.? Is the practice contrary to
Scripture or in harmony with it.
Sometimes such things may be difficult to discern.
Throughout Scripture we are warned against idolatry
and the making of images. Yet in our Parsha, in Bemidbar 21:8, Yahweh commands
Mosheh: ...Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole. And it shall be
that everyone who is bitten, when he looks on it, shall live.
Yahweh is not contradicting His clear command against
making objects to worship. He is not in any way advocating idolatry. The fiery
serpent, made of copper or brass, was not an object of worship. What Yahweh was
telling the Israelites, and the message He is giving us through this passage
today is that sometimes we, as frail mortals with limited understanding, have to
use certain tools in addition to prayer. Like the fiery serpent, these tools
help us connect to Yahweh and help us heal or ward off negativity or outright
evil.
Such tools that we have today are the Mezzuah,
Tzith-tzith, Tallith, and Tefillin. Like the Mikveh, we may use a combination of
physical and spiritual measures.
With these thoughts in mind, let us return to our
Parsha.
In verse 10 we read that the ashes of
the sacrificed red heifer must be carried out of the camp by a
clean man.
If we are to remove dead works, or any form of
uncleanness from Yisrael, we must ourselves be clean first.
This principle was taught by our Messiah, in
MattithYahu 7:3-5
7:3. And why do you look
at the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not notice the plank in your own
eye.
Too often we tend to correct the faults we see in
others, but fail to see our own shortcomings.
Regarding the clean man who removes the ashes, we
should must consider that we cannot correct any spiritual deficiency unless and
until we correct ourselves first. That brothers and sisters often proves a
daunting task but one that must be carried out.
Rabbinical commentators say that those who think they
are clean are most likely unclean, while those who readily acknowledge their own
personal uncleanness are on the road to spiritual cleanness.
This principle was reiterated by Yahshua our Messiah
in Luke 18:10-14:
-
Two men went
up to the Set-Apart Place to pray the one a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector (KJV 'Publican')
-
The Pharisee
stood and began to pray with himself this way, 'Elohim, I thank You that I am
not like the rest of men, swindlers, unrighteous, adulterers, or even as this
tax collector.
-
I fast twice a
week, I give tithes of all that I possess.'
-
But the tax
collector standing at a distance would not even raise his eyes to the heaven,
but was beating his breast, saying, Elohim, show favor unto me, a
sinner.
-
I say to you,
this man went down to his house declared right, rather than the other. For
everyone who is exalting himself shall be humbled, and he who is humbling
himself shall be exalted.
In the above passage we should note
several things. One, the Pharisee prayed ...with himself. The
purpose of his prayer was to exalt himself in his own eyes. He was not praying
to Yahweh, he was praying to himself and thereby, setting himself up as an
idol.
He was also quick to compare himself with others. We
can speculate much about this, but suffice it to say that his false sense of
self-superiority and his arrogance (ego) caused him to look down on others and
disrespect them, even a man of his own congregation.
Perhaps this is also what Yahshua had in mind when He
said that we must cast the plank (KJV beam) out of our own eye, so that we can
see clearly to help our brethren. We must not only be clean, but we must have
the right vision. Spiritual cleanliness gives us the clarity of vision we
need.
Brothers and sisters, Nazarene Yisrael is presently
in great turmoil. Many false teachers have risen up of late advocating divisive
doctrines. While they have many clever arguments, some based on their own
twisted interpretation of scripture, like Korah, they stand on shaky ground.
Their evil teachings threaten to tear our precious Nazarene faith apart. Rest
assured, however, that will never happen. While ...evil men and
seducers
shall wax worse and worse, and while
many shall fall away from the faith, rest assured that Yahshua our Messiah is
coming for the faithful remnant of His people. Please pray for the Union and for
our Rabbis who have come under vicious attacks simply because we stand fast for
the truth. Do not neglect personal prayer.
As we consider these things let us ask Almighty
Yahweh to show us our own spiritual shortcomings, and let us determine to make
ourselves clean with the waters of cleansing. Water, we remember is symbolic of
the word of Yahweh: Debarim (Deuteronomy) 32:2, as well as physical cleansing
through Mikveh.
We urge each and every one to tune into our Pal
Talk Bible study this Erev Shabbat (Friday evening) at 8 p.m. Eastern
Daylight Time and again at 1 p.m. Shabbat Day. Once in Pal Talk, click on
Religion and Spirituality, then click on Other. Our room is
Bnai Yeshurun.
May Almighty Yahweh bless us all as we seek to serve
Him and learn more of His ways.
Comments or questions regarding this week's
commentary may be addressed to Rabbi Mitchell via e-mail at: yoel@windstream.net
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