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The parasha for this week is entitled B’ha-alotecha, meaning “when you raise up”, and covers Numbers 8-12. Within this Torah portion is God’s command to set apart and consecrate B’nai Levi, the Levites, for the service of the Tabernacle. From the time of the Exodus onward, every first-born male, whether of man or animal, was to be given to Adonai. God chose the entire tribe of Levi to belong to Him in place of all the firstborn sons of Israel. This honor was on account of their having been the only tribe to stand up and declare loyalty to Adonai and Moses at the time of the Golden Calf incident. In chapter 8, the Levites were actually presented as a living wave offering – something I believe anticipated the New Covenant admonition that we present our bodies to the Lord as “living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1).
The Torah portion also contains God’s command that Israel celebrate the Passover faithfully each year on its appointed day: the 14th of Nisan. Passover was never to be neglected. If an individual was ritually unclean, perhaps due to the death of a friend or family member, or if a person was on a distant journey and could not return to Israel in time, they were permitted to celebrate it on the 14th day of the second month (Iyyar). But if a man simply refused to celebrate Passover, they were to be cut off from Israel.
One of the verses that really drew my attention in this parasha was Numbers 9:14. God makes abundantly clear that on matters of such importance as the celebration of Passover, there were to be no double-standards in Israel. We read, “You shall have one statute, both for the alien and for the native of the land.” This should come as no surprise, since the One who declared it would later say, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples!” [1] and in light of Yeshua’s declaration, “They (Jews and Gentiles) shall become one flock with one Shepherd.” [2]
In terms of Israel’s relationship with Adonai, this parasha feels a little bit like a roller coaster ride. On the one hand, our people obediently followed the Lord wherever He led us, by a pillar of cloud by day or a pillar of fire by night. Whenever the cloud was lifted, Israel packed up and set out. Whenever it settled, Israel settled. It might be for two or three days, several weeks, even a year at a time. But our people followed God. It was to this that Adonai hearkened back when He said through the prophet Jeremiah,
“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying ‘Thus says the Lord, “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness, through a land not sown.”’” [3]
But on the other hand, this parasha also records an awful lot of kvetching.
Chapters 11 and 12 recount a series of complaints. First our people complained about the lack of culinary variety. Too much manna, and no cucumbers, melons, leeks and onions like we had back in Egypt. Next Moses complains to God about having to put up with a constantly complaining people. Later Aaron and Miriam, Moses’ siblings, complain that he married an Ethiopian woman. Think about this: four hundred years of brutal slavery, and we’ve been free all of about a year, and already we’re demanding and accusing and are generally thankless. The immature believer looks at this passage and thinks, “What is wrong with these people?! Selfish, mean-spirited ingrates! Can’t they appreciate the fact that they’re free?!” But the mature believer looks at this and says, “Wow – that hits just a little too close to home! It sounds a lot like yours truly. How much I have and how I take it all for granted, and how little I express appreciation to God!” We human beings are quick to forget all that God has done for us. We become more demanding and, proportionally, less thankful.
Moses also kvetched because he seemed to get nothing but grief, rejection and rebellion from the very people he was serving. God had him appoint seventy elders, to whom God would give a portion of His Holy Spirit, in order to share the burden of administering the nation. The seventy were summoned outside the camp to meet with Moses and God, but two of them, Eldad and Medad, for whatever reason, did not come out. But the Holy Spirit came upon these two also, right in the middle of the camp, in the midst of two million people, and they began prophesying, too. So much for those who argue that the Holy Spirit is a force, or merely an emanation. Blind, impersonal forces don’t make precise, personal distinctions!
But when Joshua heard about Eldad and Medad, he urged Moses to restrain them. Joshua’s loyalty to Moses was commendable. But in this instance his zeal was misplaced, and he earned a mild rebuke from Moses for it. Moses says, “Would that all God’s people were prophets…” You and I need to be careful not to misplace our loyalties, nor to elevate other human beings, even those we respect, beyond what is appropriate. Moses was a great servant of God, but very definitely a fellow human being. Our first loyalty is to God and to Messiah Yeshua. This kind of misplaced jealousy occurs elsewhere in the Scriptures, including 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and it is never a good thing.
But whereas Joshua was jealous for Moses, Aaron and Miriam became jealous of Moses, and began complaining about him. The catalyst seems to have been Moses’ having married a Cushite woman. Cush was the ancient name for Ethiopia. That’s right, Moses married a black woman! When you consider how much discussion and debate is taken up in the Jewish community over the issue of intermarriage, this passage is extremely significant. Intermarriage, rightly defined, biblically defined, is when a believer marries an unbeliever, not when a person of one ethnicity marries a person of another ethnicity. One thing I take from this passage is that God detests bigotry. Aaron and Miriam had to learn this the hard way, as God called them “out on the carpet” as it were, and struck Miriam with leprosy and she had to be confined outside the camp of Israel for seven days. Will we learn the lesson, I wonder? I believe we can learn from observing Yeshua’s willing interaction with individuals and groups whom the Jewish religious establishment wouldn’t give the time of day.
Is it possible to be so near to the God of Israel, and yet have our hearts be so far from Him? Yes it is, and from these historical books we need to learn Yirat Adonai – proper reverence for the Lord. The key is in not forgetting what He has done for us, and this is why Israel needed frequent reminders of the Exodus from Egypt. In the same way, we need to cultivate our walk with Yeshua in such a way as to not ever forget the cost at which He redeemed us. Just as we re-visit these Torah passages through a yearly cycle, each of us should regularly be reading one or another of the Gospels, so that it will never be said of us, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.” May God strengthen us and may He re-kindle, in each of our hearts, our first-love for Yeshua.
[1] Isaiah 56:6-7
[2] John 10:16
[3] Jeremiah 2:2