Weekly Torah Reading...

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Terumah : תרומה : - "Heave offering"
Torah : Exodus 25:1?27:19
Haftarah : 1 Kings 5:26?6:13
Gospel : Mark 10?11

Adapted from Torah Club Volume One
Unrolling the Scroll

The ark of the covenant was at the heart of the Tabernacle. As such, it corresponds to the heart of man. Just as the ark was God's throne in the Tabernacle, we need to make our hearts a suitable throne for Him in our lives.

You shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you. (Exodus 25:16)

It is easy to look good on the outside, but how do we make our hearts pure and keep them pure? Is it even possible?

In Hebrew thought, the heart is the not regarded as the seat of the emotions. Instead it represents a person's thoughts, intellect and will. The Hebrew Bible uses the word heart the way we use the word mind in English.

The Torah says, "Every intent of the thoughts of [man's] heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5) and "The intent of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Genesis 8:21). The prophet Jeremiah says, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). If this is the state of the human mind, how can we ever hope to change? How can we have pure hearts? "Who can say, ‘I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from my sin ‘?" (Proverbs 20:9) the Proverbs asks.

God promises that He will change our hearts from within. This is the promise of His new covenant. In Jeremiah 31:33, He said He would make a new covenant with His people Israel, and as a part of the new covenant, He would change their hearts by writing His Torah on them.

"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My Torah within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." (Jeremiah 31:33)

The concept of placing the Torah in our hearts is illustrated by the ark of the covenant. The ark was made to house the two tablets of the covenant. So too the Torah is to be placed in our hearts. The prophet Ezekiel promises that in the Messianic redemption God will give us new hearts:

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

When we commit ourselves to be followers of Yeshua and recipients of His cleansing, the Spirit of God begins the process of recreating our hearts. We should pray toward this end with the words of King David, who said, "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (Psalm 51:10). Then we may declare along with him, "I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Torah is within my heart" (Psalm 40:8).

The Torah can be likened to a marriage contract (ketubah). In Jewish tradition, the ketubah is placed somewhere within the family home as a continual reminder of the marriage obligations. In the days of Moses, the Tabernacle stood in the center of the encampment of the tribes of Israel. The focal point of the Tabernacle was an inner chamber called the Holy of Holies, in which stood the ark of the covenant. The two tablets of the Ten Commandments were inside the ark. In that regard, the Torah, God's ketubah with Israel, was at the center of the home.

You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it. (Exodus 25:11)

The ark was a wooden chest constructed of resinous acacia wood. The wood was overlaid with pure gold inside and outside. We can understand why the chest was coated with gold on the outside where it could be seen, but why waste precious gold by overlaying the inside of the chest? No one could see the inside of the ark.

The gold on the inside teaches us an important lesson about integrity. To be a suitable vessel for God's service, it is not sufficient for a person to merely look godly on the outside. Though the exterior appearance is important, the interior is equally important. The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word for "actor." A hypocrite is someone who acts like a righteous person but is not. Yeshua criticized many of the pharisees of His day and their disciples for hypocrisy.

One who looks righteous on the outside but is privately godless is a hypocrite. A person who dresses piously and pretends to behave holy while harboring wicked and impure things in his heart is a hypocrite.

The ark of the covenant was overlaid with pure gold on the outside and the inside to teach us that it is not sufficient to be righteous only in the eyes of men. "God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).

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Ki Tisa ? כי תשא : “When you take”
Torah : Exodus 30:11?34:35
Haftarah : 1 Kings 18:1?39
Gospel : Mark 13?14

Adapted from Torah Club Volume One
Unrolling the Scroll

The Tabernacle was to be a holy place, a sanctuary in space where Israel could meet God. In the same way the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time in which we can meet with God.

So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. (Exodus 31:16)

Why are the laws of Sabbath repeated here in the Torah? The Sabbath laws have already been stated in Exodus 16 and Exodus 20. By repeating them here (and again in Exodus 35) in conjunction with the instructions about building the Tabernacle, the LORD shows us that there is a connection between the Sabbath and Tabernacle.

The Israelites might have assumed that, though regular melachah was forbidden on the Sabbath, it was all right to work on the Sabbath to build the Tabernacle. Since the work was holy work, it should be permissible on the Sabbath. The repetition of the Sabbath laws next to the instructions for the Tabernacle makes it clear that the Sabbath was not to broken even for that holy work.

The Sabbath was given as a sign of God’s covenant with Israel. It is a perpetual sign of the covenant relationship between the children of Israel and the LORD. The Tabernacle functioned in a similar manner. It too was a sign of Israel’s relationship with God.

The Jewish people are commanded to observe the Sabbath. “You shall surely observe My Sabbaths. ? The sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath” (Exodus 31:13, 16). The Hebrew word translated as “observe” is shamar (שמר). The word shamar means “to guard, protect and keep.” God wants His people to guard and protect the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

This can be compared to a man who wanted to marry a girl. He gave her an expensive diamond engagement ring as a sign of his commitment to her. He told her, “This ring is a sign between you and me. It represents the covenant of our betrothal. Guard it well and keep it safe.”

The LORD told Israel, “This is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you” (Exodus 31:13). Just as the diamond engagement ring represented that the girl was set apart for her fiancé, the Sabbath represents that Israel is sanctified by God. As the nineteenth-century secular Zionist Asher Ginzberg once said, “More than the Jewish people have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jewish people.” The Sabbath has been an anchor of Jewish identity throughout the generations.

He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 32:4)

In the walk of faith there are lots of ups and downs. People sometimes refer to “mountaintop experiences” in their spiritual lives. A mountaintop experience is one in which you emotionally feel your connection with God. It might come as the result of a powerful teaching, an anointed worship service, a time of prayer and fasting, a new insight in Torah, a special weekend conference. The danger with mountaintops is that it is easy to slide down them.

The people of Israel had a mountaintop experience when they heard God speak to them from Mount Sinai. They were still spiritually energized by it when they made their covenant with Him in Exodus 24. But forty days later, they were feeling restless and disobedient. They had slid down the mountain.

Spiritual mood swings are dangerous. We find it all too easy to go from being spiritually high to plummeting into sin and disobedience when the buzz wears off?and it always wears off. Part of the solution is to quit looking for spiritual buzzes. The life of faith does have mountaintop experiences, but those experiences should not be our goal. A traveler who is always charging up mountaintops and then sliding down into valleys will not get very far. If he wants to achieve real progress, he needs to stay on the level ridge routes, avoiding the peaks and the dips. We need to work on the simple, day-to-day disciplines of faith.

Zarks SG

hmm? this thing make me sleepy

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Vayakhel ? ויקהל : “And He assembled”
Torah : Exodus 35:1?38:20
Haftarah : 1 Kings 7:40?50
Gospel : Mark 15

Adapted from Torah Club Volume One
Unrolling the Scroll

When the people of God join together with a common goal, we can do great things. The joint effort of the people of God working together to fulfill His commandments created a spiritual house worthy of God’s Dwelling Presence.

And all the skillful men who were performing all the work of the sanctuary came, each from the work which he was performing. (Exodus 36:4)

The building of the Tabernacle required each person to contribute to the work from his own skill set. The tanners did the tanning, weavers did the weaving, carpenters did the carpentry, metal smiths did the smithing and so on. Each person had something to offer from his own unique vocational skills.

The Torah life is not just a life of religious rituals and scripture study. God encourages all of us to develop our own unique vocational skills so that we can each be self-sufficient and contribute to the common good of the community. Paul instructs each believer to lead a quiet life, attending to his vocation, working with his hands so that he may win the respect of those outside the community and not be dependent upon anyone.¹ He teaches us to find some productive field of work so that we will have adequate resources to share with others who might be in need.² These guidelines teach us that making a living is part of living out Torah. The early rabbis agreed with these sentiments. Consider the following rabbinic quotation from the Mishnah about the value of combining Torah study with an occupation:

The study of Torah is excellent when it is combined with a worldly occupation because the effort required by both keeps sin out of a person’s mind. But where there is no worldly occupation the study of Torah amounts to nothing and leads to sin. Let everyone who works in the community work for the sake of the Name of Heaven. (m.Avot 2:2)

According to this view, a person should always combine his pursuit of spirituality with the pursuit of an income. To concentrate solely on religious matters is out of balance and will eventually lead to ruin. Instead a person should regard his job a religious duty performed for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Paul illustrated this principle in his own life by supporting himself with his work in tent making.

The building of the Tabernacle illustrates the “tent making” concept well. The combined efforts of the people of God as they labored in all their respective fields resulted in the building of God’s house.

When Moses announced the plan to build the Tabernacle, he did not hire any fund-raising consultants. He did not need a high-pressure pledge drive. Moses asked only those with willing hearts to give to the work of the Tabernacle. The building of God’s holy house was not to be sullied with contributions that had been pried loose from people who were reluctant to donate to the work. “Everyone whose heart stirred him and everyone whose spirit moved him” (Exodus 35:21) contributed freely.

There were probably many among the children of Israel who did not contribute to the work. Some had a willing heart and others did not. Those who were unwilling to give excluded themselves from the privilege of having a share in building God’s house.

This story teaches us that there are two types of people, those with willing hearts and those with unwilling hearts.

Once a rabbi named Yochanon ben Zakkai (John the son of Zaccheus) asked his disciples, “What is the best kind of character that a person should try to be like?” The first of his disciples answered, “A man with a good eye.” By this he meant a generous person. The second disciple answered, “A man who is a good friend.” The third disciple said, “A man who is a good neighbor.” The fourth disciple said, “A man who looks ahead to consider the consequences of his actions.” The fifth disciple said, “A man who has a good heart.” Rabbi Yochanon replied, “I like the last answer the best because it includes all the other answers.” ³

1. 1 Thessalonians 4:11?12. 2. Ephesians 4:28. 3. m.Pirkei Avot 2:9.

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