Torah Study Tetzaveh 5784

Alex Howard

Torah Study • Sermon • Submitted 3 months ago • Presented 3 months ago

Exodus 27:20–30:10

Matthew 5:13–20

Ezekiel 43:10–27

0 ratings

· 1 view

Notes

Transcript

Handout

Shemot/Exodus 27:20-30:10, Ezekiel 43:10-27, Matthew 5:13-20

Torah Portion Shemot/Exodus 27:20-30:10

Exodus 27:20–21 ““Also you are to command Bnei-Yisrael, that they are to bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. In the Tent of Meeting, outside the curtain which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons will set it in order, to burn from evening to morning before Adonai. It will be a statute forever throughout their generations, on behalf of Bnei-Yisrael.”

1. Which part of the Tabernacle are Aaron and his sons tending to the Menorah?

a. Just before the curtain seperating the Holy of Holies from the the inner vestabule near the inscense.

2. Who else do we read about serving in the Holy Place and they receive a message from HaShem?

a. Zechariah of the division of Abijah.

b. Luke 1:9–11 “According to the custom of the priestly office, it became his lot to enter the Holy Place of Adonai to burn incense. And the whole crowd of people was praying outside at the hour of incense burning. An angel of Adonai appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.”

Exodus 28:9 ““You are to take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of Bnei-Yisrael:”

3. What would have happened if Moshe had decided to use Jet instead of Onyx? Would everything have been the same? Would he still be obedient to HaShem?

a. <Picture of Jet and Onyx>

b. If we agree it would have been sin to use a different rock on the shoulders of a garment that is worn by a single person, then why do some think it is ok to treat other commandments as if they are optional or prefrences rather than the very specific laws they are?

Exodus 28:10 “six of their names on one stone and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in the order of their birth.”

4. What is a significance of the names of all 12 tribes being etched on the Onyx Stones?

a. none of them are insignificant

b. all are meant to be

c. Which mother they had did not change their inclusion

Exodus 28:12 “Fasten the two stones upon the shoulder pieces of the ephod, to be memorial stones for Bnei-Yisrael. So Aaron is to bear their names before Adonai on his two shoulders as a reminder.”

5. We read the stones are to be memorial stones for Bnei-Yisrael, we also read that Aaron bears their names before Adonai as a reminder. Why would Adonai need a reminder? What is this really saying?

a. This maybe one of those mysteries that has yet been fully explained.

b. Ibn Ezra thought that this was an esoterical reference and that we will only know then.

Exodus 28:30 “Also put the Urim and the Thummim within the breastplate of judgment, so they will be on Aaron’s heart when he goes in before Adonai. Aaron will bear the judgment of Bnei-Yisrael on his heart before Adonai continually.”

6. Where is the description of the construction or description of the Urim and Thummim described? #1

a. Oral Torah or Talmud has a description.

b. nothing is known of their construction.

c. some scholars and sages say they where gemstones, some say they where a single parchment, some say one was wood and the other bone, others still that they where minature tablets.

d. how they worked is also widely discussed. Some say they lit up, some say they arranged themselves in to an answer, some say which ever one came out of a pouch was the answer, and others say they where ornimental and the answer came as a vision to the Kohen Hagadol.

RASHI The Urim and the Thummim. This was an inscribed Tetragrammaton, which would be put within the folds of the breastpiece. By means of it the breastpiece would bring its words to light, ur, and fulfill them, thammim. In the Second Temple they still had a breastpiece—for it would be impossible for a High Priest not to have a complete set of priestly garments—but that Name was not inside it. It was because of this inscription that it was called “a breastpiece of judgment” (v. 15), as we see from Num. 27:21, “He shall present himself to Eleazar the priest, who shall on his behalf seek the judgment of the Urim before the Lord.” The instrument of decision for the Israelites. Literally, “the judgment of the Israelites” (OJPS). This was the instrument by which they judged and decided whether to do a thing or not to do it. According to the midrash, the breastpiece was called “the breastpiece of judgment” or “of justice” because it makes atonement for perversions of justice.

RASHBAM The Urim and the Thummim. These were a sort of divinely sanctioned conjuring with names, that would be put in the breastpiece, to make decisions for them and help them provide for their needs. If the other nations have magical idols that tell the future by means of an unclean spirit, then—not to mention them in the same breath with something pure—how much more so should it be possible for a holy spirit to tell the Israelites such things.

IBN EZRA Inside the breastpiece of decision you shall place the Urim and the Thummim. As with “the tablets of the Pact” (25:16), when Moses is told to deposit them in the Ark, the Urim and Thummim have not yet been described. But it was the craftsmen who set the stones in the breastpiece (39:10), and Moses who “put into the breastpiece the Urim and Thummim” (Lev. 8:8). Thus the Urim cannot refer to the four rows of stones. In any case, the Urim and the Thummim are clearly two different things (see also Neh. 7:65). Rashi says that they were an inscribed Tetragrammaton, but the truth is that the Urim were what their name implies, made of gold and silver, and the Thummim were a round number. Now open your eyes, for the Throne rests on two hinges, and the “decorated band” is the line that divides them in half. Conceptually, there are six constellations in the north, and six in the south. Only on the breastpiece, in which justice is rooted, do they appear visibly. For those 12 stones can be distinguished one from another. But if I were even to begin to explain the mystery of the ephod and the breastpiece, I could not do so even in a book as long as the one I have devoted to my entire commentary. For no one could understand it who has not learned astronomy. In any case, Rashi could not have said what he did if he had seen the responsum of Hai b. Sherira, which denies that the Name of God can be used to foretell the future.

NAHMANIDES Inside the breastpiece of decision you shall place the Urim and Thummim. Ibn Ezra decided to show off his wisdom with regard to the Urim and Thummim, going on at great length about how they were objects of silver and gold like those used by astrologers to divine what is in the thoughts of the one who is consulting them. But that is nonsense. They were, as Rashi explains, “an inscribed Tetragrammaton which would be put within the folds of the breastpiece.” (This is why it had to be doubled.) The proof is that the Urim and Thummim are not mentioned among the things that had to be made by the artisans, they are never commanded to be made, and they are not mentioned when the making of the Tabernacle is described. We are told that the ephod was made (39:2) and that the breastpiece was made (39:8), but we are never told that the Urim and Thummim were made. If in fact they were something that had to be made by a skilled craftsman, the text would have described this at greater length than anything else. If for some reason their making was to be kept mysterious, it would have at least said, “Make Urim and Thummim as you were shown on the mountain. Make them of pure gold and refined silver.” Notice too that the text introduces all the objects to be newly made by telling Moses to make “an ark” (25:10), “a table” (25:23), “a lampstand” (25:31), and so forth. But here he is not commanded to make them at all, merely to put the Urim and Thummim inside the breastpiece (which was done in Lev. 8:8). For they were not made by the artisans, and were not part of the contributions brought by the community, but were a mystery transmitted to Moses directly from the Almighty, and he wrote them in holiness. And they were made in heaven. They were holy Names, by whose power the letters on the stones of the breastpiece could light up, for the priest who was inquiring of them to read. For example, when the Israelites inquired, “Which of us shall be the first to go up against the Canaanites and attack them?” (Judg. 1:1), the priest concentrated on those names that were the Urim—the “lights”—and saw the name Judah light up, along with the yud of Levi, the ayin of Simeon, the lamed of Levi, and the heh of Abraham (which was written there too, according to the opinion of our Sages; or perhaps the heh of Judah lit up a second time). Now these letters could have been arranged in any number of ways to spell words. But there were other holy Names there, called Thummim, through whose power the mind of the priest was “perfected,” thammim, in the knowledge of how to interpret the letters. With the letters of the Urim still glowing before his eyes, he would turn his attention to the Thummim, and the correct interpretation—in this case, yehudah ya’aleh, “Judah shall go up”—would come into his mind. This was done on the level of the Holy Spirit, which is below that of prophecy but above that of the bat kol, or heavenly voice, which (as our Sages tell us) was used during the Second Temple period, once prophecy and the Urim and Thummim had ceased. It may be that, once Moses had put them into the breastpiece, he passed the mystery of them down, along with other secrets of the Torah, to the great sages of Israel. This would explain how David came to have an ephod and a breastpiece modeled after those made by Moses. David’s ephod, however, was apparently made of linen, like that of Samuel, who “was engaged in the service of the Lord as an attendant, girded with a linen ephod” (1 Sam. 2:18). Similarly, the priests killed by Doeg (1 Sam. 22:18) are described as “eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod.” Such an ephod would be put on a priest who happened to be a prophet, and he would be asked questions and would sometimes be able to answer, as Ibn Ezra thought. As far as Ibn Ezra’s remark that if Rashi had seen the responsum of Rabbi Hai he would not have commented as he did—we have seen this responsum and considered it, and have come to the conclusion that Ibn Ezra did not fully comprehend it.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS The Urim and Thummim. This refers to cities (like “Ur” of the Chaldeans, Gen. 11:28) and boundaries (where a city’s territories, thammim, come to an end). Inside the breastpiece, opposite the tribal names engraved on the stones on the outside, were descriptions of their territories: “such-and-such a territory is assigned to the tribe of So-and-So.” This “instrument of decision for the Israelites” would prevent territorial disputes between them. When the land was apportioned by lot in Joshua’s time, the allotments fell out (through the Holy Spirit) exactly as written in the breastpiece (Bekhor Shor). Clearly no special skill was required to make them, which would have forced Moses to have someone else do it. Some of the ancients say that the mysterious Name of God was written on them by Moses, and to me this makes perfect sense (Gersonides). In my opinion, Nahmanides is not quite right; the letters did not go on all at once, but blinked on and off in the correct order to spell the message (Abarbanel). Aaron shall carry the instrument of decision for the Israelites over his heart. Literally, “Aaron shall carry the judgment of the Israelites upon his heart”—that is, he shall constantly pray that God judge them to be innocent (Sforno).

Michael Carasik, ed., Exodus: Introduction and Commentary, trans. Michael Carasik, First edition, The Commentators’ Bible (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 2005), 249.

Exodus 29:22–24 ““Moreover, take some of the fat from the ram, along with the fat tail, the fat that covers the innards, the covering over the liver, the two kidneys and the fat that is on them, along with the right thigh, because it is a ram of consecration. Also take one loaf of bread, one cake of oiled bread, and one wafer out of the basket of matzot that is before Adonai. You are to put the entirety into Aaron’s hands and the hands of his sons, and present them as a wave offering before Adonai.”

7. What does it mean to make a wave offering? How where the objects waved? #2

a. This is also called an elevation offering.

b. The process is to lift the offering up and down forward and backward in all 4 directions and toward the Heavens above and the earth below.

RASHI Place all these on the palms of Aaron and his sons, and offer them. Both the owner and the priest are involved in the waving of the offering. How so? The priest puts his hand under that of the owner and waves it. Again, in this case Aaron and his sons filled the role of the owner and Moses that of the priest. An elevation offering. The OJPS translation, “wave-offering,” is to be preferred. He waves it back and forth to the One to whom all four directions belong, and this waving prevents evil spirits coming from any of the four directions; then he waves it up and down to the One to whom heaven and earth belong, which prevents evil dews.

Michael Carasik, ed., Exodus: Introduction and Commentary, trans. Michael Carasik, First edition, The Commentators’ Bible (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 2005), 259.

Haftarah Portion Ezekiel 43:10-27

Ezekiel 43:10 ““You, son of man, describe the House to the house of Israel, so they will be ashamed of their iniquities. Let them measure accurately.”

8. Why is Ezekiel called son of man? Does this have any special meaning?

a. Hebrew ben-Adam, Son of Adam

b. is used 109 times in the Tanakh, 93 of them in Ezekiel

c. 108 uses of the phrase make a distinction that is the person or people refernced are simply humans as in born of a man ben-adam.

d. Daniel 7:13 ““I was watching in the night visions. Behold, One like a Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days, and was brought into His presence.” This too is possibly a refrence to a ben-adam son of a man, human.

9. Why is a description of the sacrifices, and functions of the Kohanim and Altar given again?

a. It stresses they have not changed.

b. Exile did not cause them to change, destruction of the temple did not cause them to change, the sin of the people did not cause them to change.

c. Hashem returned the people to the original method of worshiping him as given at Mount Sinai if not from the very beginning of time.

Basorah Portion Matthew 5:13-20

Matthew 5:17 ““Do not think that I came to abolish the Torah or the Prophets! I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.” #3

10. What does fulfill mean?

a. πληρόω plēroō provide fully; proclaim completely; give true meaning; cause to happen; cause to think

17 Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete, to make their meaning full. The Hebrew word “Torah,” literally “teaching, doctrine,” is rendered in both the Septuagint and the New Testament by the Greek word “nomos,” which means “law.” Greek has had a more direct and pervasive influence on English and other modern languages than Hebrew has, and this is why in most languages one speaks of the “Law” of Moses rather than the “Teaching” of Moses. It is also part of the reason why the Torah has mistakenly come to be thought of by Christians as legalistic in character (see Ro 3:20bN, Ga 3:23bN). In Judaism the word “Torah” may mean:

(1) Chumash (the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses); or

(2) That plus the Prophets and the Writings, i.e., the Tanakh (known by Christians as the Old Testament; see 4:4–10N); or

(3) That plus the Oral Torah, which includes the Talmud and other legal materials; or

(4) That plus all religious instruction from the rabbis, including ethical and aggadic (homiletical) materials.

Here it means the first of these, since “the Prophets” are mentioned separately. The Prophets. The word “Prophets,” capitalized (as here, 7:12, 22:40; Lk 16:16, 28, 31; 24:44; Yn 1:45, 6:45; Ac 13:15, 27, 40; 15:15; 24:14; 28:23; Ro 3:21), refers to the second of the three main parts of the Tanakh. When the Tanakh prophets as persons are referred to, the word is not capitalized; “prophet” in the singular is never capitalized. By mentioning both the Torah and the Prophets Yeshua is saying that he has not come to modify or replace God’s Word, the Tanakh. Compare Lk 24:44–45.

To complete. The Greek word for “to complete” is “plêrôsai,” literally, “to fill”; the usual rendering here, however, is “to fulfill.” Replacement theology, which wrongly teaches that the Church has replaced the Jews as God’s people (v. 5N), understands this verse wrongly in two ways.

First, Yeshua’s “fulfilling” the Torah is thought to mean that it is unnecessary for people to fulfill it now. But there is no logic to the proposition that Yeshua’s obeying the Torah does away with our need to obey it. In fact, Sha’ul (Paul), whose object in his letter to the Romans is to foster “the obedience that comes from trusting” in Yeshua, teaches that such trusting does not abolish Torah but confirms it (Ro 1:5, 3:31).

Second, with identical lack of logic, Yeshua’s “fulfilling” the Prophets is thought to imply that no prophecies from the Tanakh remain for the Jews. But the Hebrew Bible’s promises to the Jews are not abolished in the name of being “fulfilled in Yeshua.” Rather, fulfillment in Yeshua is an added assurance that everything God has promised the Jews will yet come to pass (see 2C 1:20&N).

It is true that Yeshua kept the Torah perfectly and fulfilled predictions of the Prophets, but that is not the point here. Yeshua did not come to abolish but “to make full” (plêrôsai) the meaning of what the Torah and the ethical demands of the Prophets require. Thus he came to complete our understanding of the Torah and the Prophets, so that we can try more effectively to be and do what they say to be and do. Verses 18–20 enunciate three ways in which the Torah and the Prophets remain necessary, applicable and in force. The remainder of chapter 5 gives six specific cases in which Yeshua explains the fuller spiritual meaning of points in the Jewish Law. In fact, this verse states the theme and agenda of the entire Sermon on the Mount, in which Yeshua completes, makes fuller, the understanding of his talmidim concerning the Torah and the Prophets, so that they can more fully express what being God’s people is all about.

David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary : A Companion Volume to the Jewish New Testament, electronic ed. (Clarksville: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1996), Mt 5:17.

Matthew 5:18 “Amen, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter “yud” or serif “kotz” shall ever pass away from the Torah until all things come to pass.”

11. Has heaven and earth passed away? Has all things come to pass? Will they ever? What is this really stating.

a. Heaven and earth are places.

b. all things come to pass is time.

Matthew 5:19 “Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, this one shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

12. Will one who breaks even the smallest mitzvah be in Olam Haba? What will his position be?

a. Yes he will be least.

13. What is this stating about the one who does the smallest commandment and teaches them?

b. he will be great.

14. So compare your favorite christian author who does not keep even Shabbat or kosher and teaches others they do not need to with the mean old Jewish man who does not want to hear about the “Jewish messiah” from you and yet he keeps the commandments and teaches those in his community to do so too. Who will be called great and who will be called least in Olam Haba according to this verse?

Related Media

Related Sermons