Scriptures

Leviticus 21:1-24:23

Haftorah Reading
Ezekiel 44:15–31

B’rit Chadashah
On becoming a living sacrifice and set-apart priesthood: Romans 12:1–2; 1 Peter 2:9; Heb 12:14; 1 Peter 1:13–17
On Yeshua our set-apart and perfect High Priest: Hebrews 7:26
On YHVH’s feasts being prophetic foreshadows: Colossians 2:16–17
On the saints being living menorahs for YHVH: Matthew 5:16; Ephesians 5:8
Yeshua is the Light of the world: John 1:4,9; 8:12; 2 Corinthians 4:6
Yeshua teaches on “an eye for an eye”: Matthew 5:38–4
Do not be a respecter of persons—one standard for all: James 2:1–9; 1 Peter 1:17

Etz Chayeem Hoo (He Is a Tree of Life)

Yeshua is a tree of life to those who take hold of Him, and those who support Him are praiseworthy. His ways are ways of pleasantness and all of His paths are shalom. Bring us back YHVH to You, and we shall come, renew our days as of old.

As we begin to study the Torah let us never forget that YESHUA THE MESSIAH is the Living Torah, the Torah-Word of Elohim made flesh. He is the way, the truth and the life — the Living Manna sent from heaven. Without Him living in our lives through the indwelling Presence of his Set-Apart/Kadosh Spirit (Who leads us into all truth and revelation) the Written Torah can become the dead letter of the law!

Outline of This Week’s Parashah (Torah Portion):

• 21:1 Laws of the Priests Concerning Dead Bodies, Beards, Marriage

• 21:10 Laws Concerning the High Priest (Cohen haGadol)

• 21:16 Disqualifying Blemishes (Pertaining to Priestly Service)

• 22:1 Safeguarding the Sanctity of Offerings and Contamination

• 22:10 Contaminations of Offerings/Contributions (Terumah)

• 22:17 Do Not Offer Blemished Animals to YHVH

• 22:32 Desecration and Sanctification of Elohim’s Name

• 23:1 Sacred Festivals/Set-Apart Times

• 23:3 Shabbat (Sabbath)

• 23:4 Pesach (Passover)

• 23:9 The Omer ([Barley] Sheaf)

• 23:15 The Omer Count and Shavuot (Feast of Weeks or Pentecost)

• 23:23 Yom Teruah (Day of Trumpets)

• 23:26 Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)

• 23:33 Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret (Feast of Tabernacles and the Eighth Day)

• 24:1 The Menorah: To Be Kept Burning With Pure, Pressed, Clear Olive Oil Perpetually

• 24:5 The Showbread: Two Stacks of Six Loaves Replaced Each Shabbat Perpetually

• 24:10 The Blasphemer: A Rebellious Son Blasphemes the Name of YHVH and Is Stoned

• 24:17 The Penalty for Hurting Someone Else: An Eye For an Eye, Tooth for Tooth, etc.

Study Questions For This Week’s Midrash (Torah Discussion):

1. In Chapter 21, YHVH demands higher standards of righteousness, obedience and holiness for those in leadership over his people. The higher up in leadership one desires to go the more one’s walk must characterize service, self-deprecation and holiness. (See 1 Tim 3:1–13; Tit 1:5–9.) Standards of holiness rise as one attains a deeper and more intimate relationship with YHVH. Yeshua condemned the religious leaders of his day for not practicing what they preached (hypocrisy), for living lives of pretense and show (he called such ones “whited sepulchers full of dead man’s bones”), for greediness and pride. Check your walk in these areas. Do you want to “go places” with YHVH in service to him and his people? Are you willing to pay the price? It will be greater than you can imagine!

2. 22:1–31 In this section of the Torah, YHVH makes some strong delineations between that which is profane, polluted or contaminated and that which is kadosh or set-apart in service to YHVH. To come into his Presence demands that men follow high and exacting standards. Why? It is to teach sinful man that although YHVH is high and lifted up above the mortal and mundane plane in set-apartness and righteousness, he is not unapproachable by men who will prepare themselves properly to come into his Presence. (Read Eccl 5:1–2.) He wanted to impress this upon the Israelites as they began the service of the Tabernacle.

   Therefore, YHVH specifies that certain offerings brought to his altar that are contaminated will be rejected if (a) the offerer is in a state of physical contamination, (b) one is contaminated through improper marriage, or (c) one is offering a blemished animal. What can we learn from this? What offerings do we bring to YHVH’s altar now? Our time, our money, our energy, our talents and giftings, our devotion? Do we give him the best? Do you pray to him and study his Word in the morning when you are the freshest, or do you put him off until the end of the day after a hard day’s work just before bed when you offer up “sleepy time” prayers and read the Scriptures to fall asleep? Are your tithes the crumbs and leftovers after all the bills are paid, the government has taken out its portion and your play money has been set aside?

   If you are a young person, are you serving YHVH while you have the health and vigor of youthfulness, or are you planning on playing now and serving YHVH after you have sated the lusts of the flesh? (Read Eccl 11:9–10; 12:1–14.) Examine your life. Are you giving YHVH the best in all areas? If not, repent and change your priorities. Then see what happens in your spiritual walk and relationship with him!

3. 22:2 and 32 Profane not my set-apart name. Chapter 22 opens and closes with YHVH commanding his people to not desecrate his kadosh name, but to sanctify or to keep it set-apart. In Hebrew thought, a name is not only what we verbally call a person, but it is a reflection of one’s character and identity. Why does YHVH stress the importance of revering and sanctifying his name? How does having a proper understanding of his name help humans to not offer profane, polluted or contaminated offerings to YHVH? In Exodus 20, we find the Ten Commandments. The Jews teach that the first word or command is not “You shall have no other gods before me …” but rather “I am YHVH your Elohim …” Why is knowing his identity and his name so vital to a righteous walk? Do you use his name carelessly or utter it with great fear and reverence?

4. 23:2 Set-apart convocations. The Torah declares times (Shabbat and the annual festivals), persons (priests and Levites), objects (e.g., articles in the Tabernacle) as kadosh or set apart. In the Torah, and in traditional Judaism, times are designated as set-apart (Lev 23:2) through ritual, prayer or declaration. Humans are declared kadosh or set apart for service through initiation involving anointing with oil, immersion in water, and the imposition or laying on of hands. In our Christian culture of extreme informality, casualness and personal independence, the kind of formalities that Torah contains when it comes to recognizing set-apart people, times and places can seem foreign, awkward and unnecessary. What are your thoughts on this? Do you make place in your religious expression for rituals that highlight holiness issues? Such is very much a part of the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith.

5. 23:3 The seventh day is the Sabbath. Notice that the weekly Shabbat heads the list of kadosh, set apart, appointed times and is called a “set-apart convocation” (Heb. miqra, Strong’s H4744) or “assembly, ­calling together, convocation.”Obviously, YHVH takes the weekly, seventh day Sabbath very seriously. How seriously do you take it? Intimacy with YHVH demands personal holiness in heart, mind and action (walking it out). Holiness demands recognizing YHVH’s set-apart times. This is an aspect of YHVH’s spiritual economy and protocols whether we like it or not. We can play by his rules and as a result be blessed, or we can play by our own rules and suffer the consequences.

6. 23:1–36 How many annual festivals are there? What is the spiritual significance about the number seven?

7. For how long are the annual festivals to be kept? (Read Lev 23:14, 21, 31.)

8. Are the annual festivals arranged in chronological order as to one’s spiritual walk and development? Do they contain the plan of salvation or the steps man must go through to be reconciled to his Creator? How are those steps outlined in each of YHVH’s seven annual feasts?

9. 23:2, 4, 37, 44 Feasts of YHVH. Does this chapter refer to the annual festivals as “the Jewish feasts” or as “the feasts of YHVH?” Why do you think that those who teach and believe that these days are “done away with” refer to them as the “Jewish feast days?” What is the difference in subtle connotation between these two phrases? Are those who view YHVH’s feasts as being only “Jewish feasts” less likely to celebrate them?

10. The weekly Sabbath and annual Sabbaths (or feasts) dominate YHVH’s biblical calendar. The Jewish people planned their lives around these events. This is YHVH’s economy and biblical lifestyle. Do you plan your work, vacation, and lifestyle routines around these mo’edim (divine appointments)? If so, this shows that you have your priorities rightly aligned before YHVH. He calls his people to make a difference between the kadosh (set apart) and the profane (secular) (Ezek 22:26; 44:23) and observing these times helps us to do that. Through it all, our walk of intimacy with our Heavenly Father will grow and so will our level of spiritual understanding of his Word.

11. 24:22 You shall have one manner of law. There is one Torah-law for both the Israelite and the ger (sojourner). This instruction is stated elsewhere (Exod 12:49; Num 15:16, 29). Does not this fact contradict the Jewish religious idea that the Torah is only for the Jews, while the Noahide laws are for all non-Jews? Does this not also destroy the Christian concept of dispensationalism, which says that the law is for the Jews and grace is for the Christians who are no longer required to keep the law—except for those aspects of Torah they deem applicable for regulating morality and for funding the church-system (i.e., the laws of tithing)? One thing is certain: YHVH is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34) and he does not change his standards of righteousness (Mal 3:6). If Torah was good for his people then, it is good for them now!

The Biblical Feasts: A Glorious Template
of YHVH’s Plan of Redemption for the Earth

YHVH’s set-apart (kadosh) feast days are prophetic shadow-pictures or symbols of the steps man must take to be reconciled to his Heavenly Father. They are the complete plan of salvation or redemption rolled up into seven easy-to-understand steps. Though a child can understand these steps, the truths contained therein can at the same time be expanded and unfolded until one literally has rolled out before oneself the entire message of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation—a message that to the human comprehension is staggering, deep and rich beyond understanding. These seven annual festivals are literally the skeletal structure upon which the truths of the entire Bible hang. The message of redemption, sanctification, salvation, the atonement, glorification, eschatology, the history of Israel, the entire gospel message, the covenants, the marriage of the Lamb, the Bride of Messiah and Yeshua the Messiah are all prefigured within the glorious spiritual container of YHVH’s appointed times (moedim) contained in seven steps. Seven is the biblical number of divine perfection and completion.

Quite assuredly, without a deep, walking-it-out comprehension of the these feast days of YHVH, no matter how learned one is in biblical understanding, or how academically astute and mentally acute in biblical erudition one may be, one will not have a deep understanding of those scriptural subjects listed above...

To read the rest of this teaching article go to http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/feasts.pdf. In this article we discuss the following subjects:

• Why keep the moedim (appointed times) of YHVH?

• The appointed times of YHVH represent the seven steps of YHVH’s plan of salvation/redemption for mankind.

• We will give a quick overview of the three spring miqra kodesh (set-apart convocations) and the four fall miqra kodesh and explain the past, present and prophetic relevance to believers.

• We will show that the feasts of YHVH have not been “done away.”

• The apostles of Yeshua kept YHVH’s moedim.

• The inhabitants of earth will keep YHVH’s appointed times during the Millennium.

Extensive and detailed teaching articles on each of YHVH’s seven annual feasts are found on the “Teachings” page of the Hoshana Rabbah website at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast.

Haftorah Reading—Ezekiel 44:15-31
What Does It Mean to Be Set-Apart (Kadosh)

The following is a quick study on the subject of what it means to be a set-apart and sanctified people. It is the desire and purpose of YHVH, “to open the eyes of those who are without YHVH and without hope (i.e. Gentiles), and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto YHVH, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith in Yeshua the Messiah” (Acts 26:18). The Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:3–5, 7 further adds,

For this is the will of YHVH, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from [sexual immorality]: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; not in the [lustful sexual desires], even as the [pagans] which know not YHVH … For YHVH has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto being set-apart.

The words sanctification and set-apart (kadosh) are related words in the Greek language and have the same meaning, which is “to purify, to consecrate, morally blameless, sacred, pure.” Only One (i.e., YHVH) who is set-apart and morally pure can take something which is unholy and defiled (i.e., man) and make it pure.

Man cannot pull himself up by his own bootstraps. He cannot become set-apart or holy, blameless and pure through his own good works. As we just read in Acts 26:18, we are sanctified (made set-apart, morally pure, blameless) through faith in Messiah who washed away the sin in us that made us unholy in the first place. He wiped clean the slate that recorded our past sins and then deposited into our lives his Set-Apart Spirit to supernaturally empower us to walk sin-free.

But then we have to stay set-apart by keeping under the sin-cleansing blood of Yeshua, by turning away from sin daily and by living a righteous, Torah-obedient life. Such will keep us in the path of righteousness. And if we happen to sin, we must confess that sin and YHVH promises to forgive us of our sin and spiritually cleanses us and restores us to a state of being set apart (1 John 1:9).

Sadly, some mistakenly believe that the Torah of Elohim (YHVH’s standard for holiness or righteousness) is no longer for us today—that it was “done away with at the cross.” If this concept is valid, then what part of the Torah (YHVH’s instructions in righteousness) is no longer for us today? You shall not murder? You shall not steal or commit adultery? Do not worship idols? Do not have sex with an animal? Keep the Sabbath? How about tithing? Tithing is part of YHVH’s Torah-law, and most Christian churches strongly advocate adherence to that law! In reality, following all of these commandments show us how to love YHVH with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and how to love our neighbor as ourselves. Keeping his divine laws helps us to walk in a sanctified manner, and to stay holy or set-apart (sanctified).

Sanctification involves coming out of the world, and getting the world out of us! It involves separating and cleansing ourselves from something that is unholy and profane (namely, the world, the flesh and the devil) and becoming a vessel that is set-apart and sacred (Yeshua-like). It is something that happens to us when we are born again, but it is also a lifelong process. Yeshua describes this in John 17:14, 17:

I have given them your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world... Sanctify them through your truth: your word is truth.

Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:17 exhorts YHVH's people to,

“[C]ome out from among [the paganism of the world], and be you separate, says YHVH , and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters,” says YHVH Almighty.

In summary, sanctification and being set-apart has several parts. First, there is a separation from the world, flesh, sin and darkness, which involves turning to YHVH through faith in the atoning blood of Messiah. At this point YHVH sanctifies or makes one set-apart for YHVH’s set-apart purposes and involves living a set-apart life and doing YHVH's set-apart will. Sanctification takes something that is dirty, purifies it, and then dedicates it for a set-apart or godly use, and then commissions it to be used for that purpose. Remember the process this way: separation, purification, consecration leading to use or service with the end result being glorification and exaltation as kings and priests in YHVH's eternal kingdom ….

To read the rest of this teaching article go to http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/holy_pr.pdf. In this article we discuss the following subjects:

• YHVH’s people are called to live a set-apart (holy) or sanctified life.

• YHVH’s people are commissioned to make a difference between the set-apart and the profane.

• How can that which is set-apart by YHVH return to that which is filthy??

• What are some examples in Scripture of what can be profaned?

• What keeps a person from becoming a set-apart priest of YHVH?

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a set-apart nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Pet 2:9)

And [Yeshua] has made us kings and priests unto Elohim and his Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. … and we shall reign on the earth … with [Messiah] a thousand years (Rev 1:6; 5:10; 20:6)