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John 5:24
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. The Torah is a contract. It is a contract that defines our affiliation with our Heavenly Father. It tells us how we belong to him and his Kingdom (Leviticus 26:10–12). A contract usually tells of benefits for those faithful to its terms, but it is useless unless it is also fitted with teeth for those who break them. Within the Torah contract are imbedded two major texts of curses designed to come upon those who dishonor it (Leviticus 26:3–13; Deuteronomy 28). These texts have often been misinterpreted as the curse of the Torah (Galatians 3:13), and therefore being nailed to the cross (Colossians 2:14) have no more value (God forbid). How could it be that the instructions which Moses proclaimed are our life ((Deuteronomy 32:47), that the statutes in which David found great rewards (Psalms 19:11), what the writer of the Book of Hebrews even called the Good News (Hebrews 4:2), are all of a sudden nailed to a tree (God forbid)? The Torah is an everlasting covenant, and even when covenantal addendums are made, they do not replace the former but are built upon them (Galatians 3:17). Upon closer examination we realize that this so-called curse of the Torah ‘nailed to the tree' spoken of by Paul is not the Torah contract itself. The salary of sin (breaking the Torah) is death (1 John 3:4; Romans 6:23). The word ‘mavet:death’ in Hebrew actually refers to separation from God. The curse spoken of here is the condemnation to separation from the Father by the eternal courts of judgment; a form of banishment from the kingdom for breaking the rules. Paul also speaks of a written code (NIV)’, of a handwriting of ordinances (KJV) nailed to the cross which is often erroneously interpreted as being the Torah Itself. The truth is that it only refers to a legal document used in courts which is also called a certificate of debt (ESV). It is the document containing the list of legal charges against us. The Master often used analogies of debts and courts when he spoke of sin (Matthew 6:12). This list, this certificate of debt is the evidence against us that we broke the Torah. It is this list that is nailed to the cross with Messiah. Basically what it means is that Messiah pays our fine to the Judge and gets rid of the evidence that stands against us. We are given a clean slate, a chance to start again. In Messiah, we are given a new chance to learn to live by God’s standards. The idea is that like the Children of Israel were rescued from the angel of death in Egypt in order to go and learn to live by Hashem’s standards instead of by those of Egypt, we also, are saved from HaSatan, that we may go and learn to live for Hashem in his way. We don’t obey the Torah in order to get redeemed; we do it because we are redeemed by the Lamb of God: Yeshua HaMashiach! P. Gabriel Lumbroso www.thelumbrosos.com For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here.
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Revelation 21:13
… on the east three gates … When Moses was on the Mount Adonai told Him to replicate among Israel all things as he was shown them (Exodus 25:9,40). It stands to reason therefore that the tabernacle, its furnishings and encampment, are the shadow of the Almighty’s throne room and its surroundings. On the Mt, Moses was given the tablets of the Testimony of the renewed covenant written by the finger of God. These were to be placed in an ark of acacia wood within the vicinity of elements of worship. This was called ‘The Tabernacle’ and constituted the ‘throne room’ of God. This throne room was to be surrounded by the Levite camp, itself surrounded by the twelve tribes, three tribes on each side. When Balaam saw the whole encampment from afar he was so moved by the spirit of Hashem that he exclaimed, "How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your encampments, O Israel" (Number 24:5)! From the book of Leviticus we learn that the three concentric circles around the Tabernacle are three concentric circles of holiness or ritual purity. To have God in their midst was great but it was also dangerous. Protocol could not be broken; we remember what happened to the sons of Aaron Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10). Levi was therefore a sort of a buffer zone between the presence of God and the Children of Israel. A similar pattern is found in the City of God, New Jerusalem which John describes for us in the last two chapters of the Book of revelation. In this case, the whole city is holy and has no need of the light of the sun for God Himself is its center giving it light and His lamp is the Lamb (Revelation 21: 23). Like the camp of the Shekinah in the desert, the city is surrounded by the tribes of Israel which are its gates. Just as one can only enter the redemptive covenant of Israel through Yeshua of the tribe of Judah, one can only enter the city by way of one of the tribes of Israel. We are told also that the city rests on the foundation of the disciples of Yeshua when he was on earth. The sages of Israel often analogized the whole idea of the Tabernacle into the human body. The Tables of the Testimony in the middle of the Shekinah camp represented the place of the heart in our bodies. In this world, we can only find sense, purity and holiness if the Word, the Lamp of the Lamb is at the center of our lives, focus, and attention. When our lives seem disoriented or even ‘off-center’, may we consider that perhaps we have diverted our attention to other things from that which is most important: God and His Word. This word ‘disoriented. It is one we use when we lose our sense of location. It means ‘to lose the East’. The Tribe of Judah where our Master is from was placed on the East side of the Tabernacle. He is our East helping us make sense of life. May we never lose our ‘East’! Mark 11:25
Forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. "You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am Adonai your God" Leviticus 25:17). This command comes to us from within the context of shemitah שמיטה (remittance year) and jubilee regulations, a time when debts are to be forgiven and lands returned to their previous owner. The rulings concerning debt release caused much heart searching. The temptation for one to ask for a loan near the year of release knowing that that the debt will soon be forgiven was as great as the one for lenders to either refuse the loan, or regulate price and interest in view of the coming year of release. Due to our evil nature, much instruction is given concerning these things (Leviticus 25). The fact that Hashem has to specify all these parameters is in itself a testament to our wicked hearts and evil inclination. The whole prohibition regarding shady business deals in view of remittance years is summed up in "You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God". This is repeated several times. The systems of debts and usury are a form of oppression and slavery. The Israelites were a people that Hashem freed by a great price. They shouldn't let themselves be enslaved anymore, especially not by their brothers who were also freed slaves. In remembrance of their former slavery, Israelites were also to be kind to their employees from the nations, to the foreigner in the land. The freedom of the Israelites came at great cost of life. Jubilee laws served as a reminder that freedom is not free. The Israelite’s stay in the land was contingent on their just and merciful interaction with each other, not oppressing each other. Even now many Rabbis comepare this present exilic stage with the internal oppression and conflict within Israel in the first and second century C.E. The laws of jubilee also served as a preservation of the family farm against the monopoly of big corporations who would otherwise ruthlessly swallow small businesses and take over the land. We need to remember that these laws are only relevant as per the Land of Israel. The jubilee also gave second chance to those who had lost everything, as well as time for people to reconnect with their relatives, make things right with friends, and study the Torah. The application of the laws of jubilee definitely creates financial loss. This teaches us that financial success is not at the top of God’s priorities. What matters most to him is the welfare of his people, of all his people. We must not complain for loss because of the jubilee, but instead remind ourselves of the great debt we owe the God of the universe. At the Father’s request, our debt of sin was paid in full in Mashiach who now stands as the redeemer of our soul against the unforgiving creditor who would otherwise enslave us. Yeshua said, "forgive … so that your Father … may forgive you your trespasses". This comes with an addendum, "But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father … forgive your trespasses" (Mar 11:25-–6). In the Biblical sense, forgiveness is the renouncement of restitution for debt incurred. King David reminds us of the Father’s mercy when he penned, "He does not deal with us according to our sins (debts), nor repay us according to our iniquities" (Psalms 103:10). P. Gabriel Lumbroso www.thelumbrosos.com For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here. Luke 4:18–19
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to … preach deliverance to the captives, … to set at liberty them that are bruised,to preach the acceptable year of Adonai. The Sacred Texts teach us about Hashem’s special times (Leviticus 23; 25). Starting with Spring we have the Sabbatical years every septet, a time where for the most part the land is to be given a rest and people can only eat from what they saved and of what grows of its own accord. It has been calculated that 1967, the year when Jerusalem was freed from occupation and returned to its rightful Jewish heirs was also a Sabbatical year. Another of these times is called the Jubilee year and it comes the year after seven septets. Due to many interruptions, exiles, occupations, wars, calendar modifications, and lack of information, it is difficult to restore the exact dates of Sabbatical years and Jubilees today. Many have tried by collecting data from history book such as the Book of Josephus as well as taking into consideration hints from biblical texts, and while many of these calculations have somewhat different outcome, there is a body of them that come near to each other in their calculations. A common trend I noticed is that many put the year 28 A.D. (or around) as a jubilee year. I am not a calendar expert so I cannot say, but there are a few factors that can agree to that. The Jubilee year was to be announced in synagogues at Yom Kippur (Leviticus 25:8-9). During the days of the Master Jubilees were not officially kept but the years of the Master’s ministering on earth correspond to the possibilities of jubilee time. In any case, Yeshua did not miss his cue and could have announced it when he quoted Isaiah sixty-one in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke: 4:18). If that proclamation at the synagogue was indeed done on a Yom Kippur, then Yeshua was not coming in from a one day fast as the rest of the country did, but from a forty day fast in which his virtue was tested by the enemy of his and our souls. These forty days are comparable to the forty ‘Days of Awe”, a Jewish tradition of spending the forty days before Yom Kippur in soul-searching in order to acknowledge sin in our lives and change our ways. If there was a jubilee during the Master’s ministry, that would also explain why people had the time to leave home, travel, and listen to him. This was the point of the Jubilee, to stop the daily grind of our day-to-day existence, dedicate time to God in prayer and study of the Torah, as well as to family and friends; sort of an extended Shabbat. God knows that we need help in establishing our priorities, and time to sort out problems with the people who are part of our lives. In any case, it is evident that both Sabbatical and Jubilee years are important times in God’s calendar and we better keep track of them. Let us also remember that Yeshua is our Sabbatical Jubilee. He is the one who brings us spiritual and physical restoration, and soon his Sabbatical Kingdom will be established on earth as the greatest of all Jubilees. P. Gabriel Lumbroso www.thelumbrosos.com For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here. Matthew 6:12
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. From the Beginning, the creator organized his calendar of events according to septets. The Sabbath crowns a seven-day week (Genesis 2:2–3). Creation and the coronation of Messiah is celebrated on the foirst day of the seventh month of the year (Leviticus 23:24). Every seven years fields enjoy a time of rest, and a jubilee deliverance of slaves and forgiveness of debts is celebrated after seven septets (Leviticus 25). In addition, festivals in both Spring and Fall last seven days, and Pentecost is celebrated counting seven weeks from the Feast of Firstfruits (Leviticus 23). These timings are our compass in time, but the present-day Western Gregorian/Roman calendar has gotten us out of sync’ with Hashem's clock. According to the Torah, after seven septets, the whole economic system has to reboot so to speak (Leviticus 25:11–17). All debts have to be forgiven as well as possessions retained as collateral. These possessions included individuals enslaved to their creditors due to financial hardship. The jubilee provided some sort of salvation and deliverance from eternal financial servitude. Hashem said that he established this as a safeguard for the evil heart of man. He said, "Thus you are not to take advantage of each other, but you are to fear your God; for I am Adonai your God" (Leviticus 25:17). Our sins are like our debt towards God (Matthew 6:12), and the Messiah comes on the Jubilee to restore our financial/moral balance. Having rejected Hashem's wise instructions, we today have a world in which the economy is based on oppressing others through eternal usury. As we see the world more and more engrossed in an economy were the rich become fewer and richer and the poor more numerous and poorer, we see its financial base failing, held together loosely with a paper currency that is not even worth what it is printed upon. Endorsing the jubilee schedule doesn’t seem to make good business sense but for Hashem it seems very important. In the days of King David, it is said that, "Again the anger of Adonai was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah" (2 Samuel 24:1). We are not told why God’s anger was kindled against Israel, but when we look at the chronology of this, we find that in the 38th year of David, the people had failed to observe seventy rest years and Jubilees. God then brought judgment upon them, causing 70,000 people to die (2 Sam. 24:15). One thousand people died for every rest year that was owed in their debt to the Torah. This judgment paid the penalty and wiped the slate clean. Then the people failed to keep their rest years and Jubilees again. After they owed another seventy rest years (Sabbath years) and Jubilees, God brought Judah into Babylonian captivity for seventy years to pay the debt. What is the reason God gave for the captivity? To fulfill the word of Adonai by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten [70] years (2 Chronicles: 36:21). P. Gabriel Lumbroso www.thelumbrosos.com For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here. Matthew 24:31
And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. We are still in the season of the counting of the Omer, between Pesach and Shavuot, between Passover and Pentecost. The command to count seven Sabbaths of weeks plus one day (50 days) is incumbent upon every Israelite, as in the text of Leviticus 23 it is expressed in the second person of the plural (Leviticus 23:15–16). The commandment to count the days of the Omer to Shavuot/Pentecost sounds very similar to the commandments of counting the years to the jubilee. The high priest (this command is given to Moses in the second person singular form) is to count seven weeks of years or forty-nine years, then to declare the fiftieth year jubilee (Leviticus 25:8–10). This declaration is made in the synagogue on Yom Kippur. The counting of the jubilee has been all but lost. Many people are trying to piece it together and we have now some ideas of where we’re at, but even so, the command is not practicable at this time. It is the duty of the high priest to count off the jubilee. At this point in time we do not have a physical high priest simply because we do not have a physical temple. The commandment also requires that on the jubilee all lands be returned to their previous owners, all debts be forgiven and slaves liberated. Today’s slavery has to do with being owned by someone to whom we ought money (Proverbs 22:7). I don’t think that the financial systems of today are very well geared to these practices. Can you imagine all debts being forgiven, lands returned, etc …? Israel already had a hard time with it when it was under Rome; it would impossible today! Another issue with jubilees is that the Torah forbids for land in Israel to be sold in perpetuity (Leviticus 25:23). One element of the laws of jubilee is for and is to be returned to its original tribal owners. It could be used as collateral for awhile, but it eventually it needed to be returned. It is not our land to do as we please with; it is his (Leviticus 25:23)! Because of this, the sages declared that all Israel needed to be present for the great jubilee to be practiced. Today because of the long exile, we no longer follow from which tribe people are descended from. Learning about D.N.A. has started the process, but we are far from finding all Israel. Messiah is the one supposed to gather all the tribes (Acts 1:6), so it was ruled that the great jubilee will happen at the coming of Messiah. We know that before he returns (Revelations 19:11–16), 144 thousand believers from all the tribes will have been sealed in his name (Revelations 7; 14:1–5). They are the firstfruits from all the elligible tribes; therefore they are the redeemed representatives for the redemption of all the tribes of Israel. They render the jubilee of the Land possible. Yeshua will surely return to gather his people and return the Land to its rightful owners: Israel. He is the kinsman redeemer. As Boaz redeemed Ruth and thereby returned the land to Naomi, Yeshua also redeems us (The Book of Ruth). On that Day there will also be a wedding and the Land will be returned to Israel (Revelations 19:9). It will truly be the jubilee of all jubilees. May it be soon Abba, even in our days! P. Gabriel Lumbroso www.thelumbrosos.com For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here. Matthew 7:12
"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets”. Leviticus 19:17 tells us, " thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor (KJV)”. To rebuke our neighbor is actually a commandment. If we don’t do it we “suffer sin." I would dare say that this commandment has no problem being observed. There is certainly no shortage of people always trying to rebuke other. Our personal inferiority complex and sickly craving for recognition constantly pushes us in wanting to be found to be the one bringing everybody else on the right path. Let’s look a little deeper at this commandment. Whereas we do owe the truth to people around us (Ezekiel 3:17–19), I don’t think this commandment applies to people who faithfully follow their understanding, however erroneous, of obedience to God. This commandment applies more to those who knowing the truth, deliberately and willfully disobey it. Yeshua gave a good example on how to apply this commandment. He did not use it with the Sadducees and the Samaritans who were taught to reject pharisaic understanding of the Torah, as much as with the Pharisees themselves who were more enlightened. Being a Pharisee himself, Yeshua knew that they knew better. Another point to remind ourselves is that the Torah also forbids shaming others publicly. Our Master Yeshua reminds us of this. He even equates it with murder (Matthew 5:21-22). Rashi the medieval Jewish sage had a particular take on the Torah command to rebuke others. In Hebrew the verse says, ‘oke’ach, itokyach’ which could roughly literally be translated as: ‘rebuke yourself, rebuke others’. What Rashi taught was that you must take a good look at yourself before you go on rebuking others as this will give you the dynamics of compassion that will help your brother to listen to you. Yeshua taught the same understanding of the commandment, He said, "First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye (Matthew 7:5)”. Judges from the Sanhedrin believed that they were unfit to judge a case if they could not find within themselves the sin of the accused. They felt unfit because in such a case they would not be equipped with the compassion necessary to judge the case in a Godly fashion. Moses then ends the command to rebuke others with, “… you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am Adonai (Leviticus 19:18)”, a command which Yeshua commented on saying that it was the second most important in the whole Torah (Matthew 22:36–40). Also, another Jewish sage, R. Akiva who lived after Yeshua, called the command to love others as ourselves "the fundamental rule of Torah" and paraphrased it in: “What is hateful to you, do not do to others” (Shabbos 31 a). I wonder where he got these words from. P. Gabriel Lumbroso www.thelumbrosos.com For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here. 1 Peter 1:14
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. One of the laws of holiness, of the laws that set us apart from the world is, Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father (Leviticus 19:3). Reverence towards our parents sets us aside from the world so we should be seen honoring and revering our parents. This was the first commandment given with a conditional promise, that your days may be long in the land that Adonai your God is giving you (Exodus 20:12). There are two commandments with a longevity conditional clause, and they are both related to parenthood (Deuteronomy 22:7-8). Yes, to honor and reverence our parents is an integral law of the Kingdom of God; it will also be the rule of law in the World to Come under the iron rule of Messiah when he reigns on earth. It is easy to direct such a commandment towards our Western generation of teenagers. The society we have created around them seem to teach them very little respect for their parents. Could it be though that we need to direct this command towards ourselves? How much honor and reverence do we have for our parents? To honor our parents in the terms of the Torah means to support them. Exodus 20:12 basically says, (my suggested interpretation) "you shall support your parents in their old age, not send them to a government institution to be taken care of by strangers whose sole interest is to get paid for the job". If caring for them and changing their diaper cramps our style, we must remember that they allowed their style to be cramped in order to care for us and change our diapers. Will we want strangers to change ours in our old age? Revering parents speaks of respect. It is understandable that some of us may have had abusive parents who seem unworthy of respect or even of the title but these are different situations that are outside of this commandment. Whereas our parents may not be respectable, our children should not hear negative feelings towards them out of our mouths. If they do, these same words will most certainly come back to us in their mouth because we ourselves are not perfect parents either. Forgiveness is not an option; it’s a commandment from the Master who himself followed Hashem’s commands to forgive by forgiving the abuse of his persecutors (Luke 19:18; Mark 11:25-26; Luke 23:24). Sad to say, in too many homes children hear their parents speak negatively, disparagingly, disrespectfully, or even mockingly about their older parents. We often think of teaching as speaking, and of learning as listening, and as a result many of us try to teach others by telling them how to live. This was not the way of the Master. Like the Rabbis of the day, the Master taught by exemplifying the Torah, by living it and encouraging his disciples to follow his example. Paul was cradled in the same pedagogy and taught it (1 Corinthians 11:1). Teaching is by doing, and learning is by emulating. The way we react towards our parents is closely tied to the way we react to God. If we know how to trust our wiser parents, we will know how to trust the wiser leadership of the Master. P. Gabriel Lumbroso www.thelumbrosos.com For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here. 1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Though all Israel is liable to the whole Torah, not all of the Torah is incumbent upon each individual of Israel. Some rulings are solely incumbent on High-Priests, others on priests, some on Levites, Nazarites or firstborns. Some statutes solely concern men, others women or children; some also pertain singly to the stranger in the Land. The children of Moses’ brother Aaron are called Levites. They are called so because they are the descendant of the tribe of Levi, the son of Jacob. When God divided the tribes of the new born Jewish nation into the land of Canaan, God said that the Levites that they will have no land inheritance in Canaan, but that He was their inheritance (Leviticus 18:20-24). In this manner the tribe of Levi obtained the spiritual oversight and responsibility of Israel. Not all Levites automatically became priests, but all priests were to be Levites. Studying the lifestyle incumbent upon the Levite priests, it is easy to see that they were to live in a standard of purity and dedication higher than that of the rest of Israel. This standard was surpassed only by that of the High-Priest himself. Some of the particularities of the Levite priest are that he was to not own land nor busy himself with the affairs of the world. His primary job was that of a Torah teacher to the people. Wealthy folks often had their own Levite living among them teaching them and mostly their children. Most of the time though, the Levite taught in a village and people supported him with tithes and/or offerings in exchange for his services. He was the travelling living Word to the people. In His definition of the higher calling of discipleship, the Master drew from the Levitical priestly standards. He told the twelve with him that their dedication to Him was to be greater than that to their own families (Matthew 10:37), that they were in the world but not of the world (John 15:19), that they were to let go of material pursuits (Luke 12:16-35; Matthew 8:19-20) and spend their lives in the studying teaching of the Word and in prayer (Matthew 28:19-20). Yeshua did not ask for all to do that, but He left it there as an option. It seems that Peter understood the connection between a disciple of Yeshua and the Levitical priesthood when he referred to the people of the Roman congregation as a ‘royal priesthood’ (1 Peter 2:9). Many of us want to define ourselves as disciples of the Master. May we realize that this is not a title to be taken lightly. It is incumbent on whoever takes it to live like the Master did and obey His Words. A higher standard of purity is also required of us, and if we don’t fall under it, we better not call ourselves disciples at all unless a greater condemnation falls upon us (James 3:1). John 17:17
“Your word (Torah) is truth.” Due to the present inexistence of the Temple, Biblical texts on offerings or about the Yom HaKippurim rituals in Leviticus 16 may today seem irrelevant. They may feel to us like texts pertaining to a distant people and past, and as having very little to offer us today. As we wonder in this train of thought, we must remember the words of King David, "The Torah of God is perfect, pure and eternal" (Psalms 19. If these things are part of the divine oracle, they certainly have perpetual pertinence. There are some who teach that Yeshua initiated a new Temple-less era. This is strange when apostolic texts as well as historical books pertaining to fist-century life in Israel tell us that for forty years after the resurrection of the Master, that is until the roman invasion of Jerusalem, the Jewish disciples of Messiah continued Temple and synagogue attendance as a sect of Judaism. They continued in the Passover traditions, as well as in those pertaining to the atonement rituals of Yom Kippur. If they found relevancy in doing so, shouldn't we? Is there then something that we are missing and should learn from these long descriptions in Leviticus? Stepping aside a little from the realm of the ritual and entering that of the social, much indeed should be learned from Temple and offering protocols. Here are some examples. The Torah acknowledges that appointed judges can sometimes err in judgment and therefore cause the people to sin. In such a case, a public admission of error is required through an offering (Leviticus 4:13). I am thinking right now of the court which wrongfully condemned our Master. There is a provision for them to eventually confess and publicly acknowledge their error thus atoning for the sin of the people of their day. We also learn that Hashem understands our financial pressures and makes provisions for cheaper offerings to be made (Leviticus 5:1–11). Also, though Hashem understands involuntary mistakes, they still require acknowledgment and retribution. In our system, the punishment for a thief is incarceration. The Torah is concerned with retribution and as such a thief is required to restore that which he had gotten deceitfully, plus a fifth to the person he stole it from. He is also supposed to make amends with God for breaking his commands. The offering process is also quite interesting. The person comes to the altar and with his hand on the forehead of the animal to be offered confesses his sins to Hashem, (not to the priest). Doing so, he in fact transfers his sinful identity on the poor animal. Then, except in the case of a bird offering, the offerer is the one who has to kill the animal, hear it die, get splattered with its fluids, and feel its life’s warm blood run through his hands. Along with having to pay for a good quality animal, one of the best of the flock, this becomes to him a very good illustration of the horribleness and cost of disobedience and sin, which should provoke in him a healthy fear of Hashem. This makes me wonder: Christianity at large claims a theology that affirms they are no more sinners and as a result they invalidate the Torah. When the their sinful reality dawns on them they realize that they need rules, a social structure, moral guidance, and a penal system. This leas them to institute their own sense of law and righteousness. The question is: Why didn’t they keep God’s system in the first place? P. Gabriel Lumbroso www.thelumbrosos.com For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here. |
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