Parashat Emor: Teachings by Joseph Shulam

The feasts of the Lord- Emor (2023)

The summer is still not here, but spring is blossoming all over this land. In nature, in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in the civil demonstrations against the government and for the government, for the reforms in the Israeli legal system, in the educational format, and in the system of the State of Israel.

In my opinion, the judicial reform that the Israeli governing coalition is proposing to enact, is a judicial reform that will give the governing party absolute control on the Supreme Court of the State of Israel. Again, in my opinion, this kind of move made by the governing party will end the democracy in Israel because the parliament will have the right to ignore and cancel any Supreme Court ruling and the government will be free to pass any laws; even laws that would trample the civil rights of particular parties that the present government does not like or appreciate.

Not everyone agrees with this. And we must pray for Israel and for the peace inside of Israel and also from the outside of Israel, by enemies like Iran, that keep repeating their desire to delete Israel off the world map.

Shabbat’s reading for May 6th 2023, from the Torah will be Parashat Emor, from Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23, and from the Prophets, the reading will be from Ezekiel 44:15-31. From the New Testament, we will read from 1 Peter 2:4-10.

This Shabbat we will have the guests from Brazil, our dear brothers Marcelo Guimaraes and his family who are coming to Israel to celebrate their grandson, Daniel, Bar-Mitzvah. They will attend our congregation on Shabbat and we hope that Daniel will also read his portion from the Torah and be blessed by all of us for his Bar-Mitzvah together will all of his family.

The Emor Torah portion from Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23, starts with rules for the priests from Aaron’s family and tribe not to be defiled, even from the dead of their own family. Even until today, if your family name is Cohen or any variation of this name, you can’t touch the dead person or enter into a cemetery for a funeral, even of a close family member.

This tradition is very old and in fact from the Torah itself. Jews who have a blood line from the priestly families could be called Cohen, or Spiro, Katz, Kahanah, and Cahoun, and many other names that are all names of priestly families from the tribe of Levi.

The next very impressive and important teaching from the Torah portion of Emor, is the realization that being a priest, one is not a free person: to marry any one he wants and wear anything he wants and do anything he wants.

A priest is a servant of God and he has many restrictions put on his life that don’t allow him to do or go anywhere freely. This aspect of the Torah could have implications to those of us who are serving God in the virtual Temple of the Lord in the synagogues and in the churches.

I know that in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, priests have some similar restrictions and rules that are stiff and not easy like the Torah imposes on the LEVITICAL priesthood.

As evangelicals and Messianic Jews, we have adapted a very free and casual attitude toward our ministry and often times the Pastors and Church // Messianic Synagogue workers seem to take their responsibility very casually and informally.

The treatment of the ministry could be at times deemed like a private business. The attitude of the Pastor// Messianic Rabbi could be that his service in the church or synagogue is actually his, as he is the owner of the church or ministry. Sometimes the ministry is also called by the name of the pastor or the leader. The LEVITICAL priesthood was a much more structured and formal and required greater discipling and team work with the other priests and assistants.

The second major topic of our Torah reading is the “The feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.” The issue of the feasts of the Lord is one of the most challenging for the Messianic Jews in Israel.

There is significant progress in the attitude of most of the Messianic Jewish fellowships in Israel. But in the world, the clouds of Roman Christianity are still hovering over the practices and attitudes of many Messianic fellowships.

Here are some points that I would like to bring up that ought to encourage Messianic Jewish and even Protestant Christians to take the FEASTS OF THE LORD more seriously.

1. The Biblical Feasts are not Jewish Feasts; they are the Feasts of the Lord.

2. These same feasts are the feasts that Yeshua and his disciples kept and celebrated and gave special meaning to their lives and clear identification with the Torah and with the prophets, and with the continued revelation for the early community that celebrated these feasts well into the second century after the Messiah and even into the fourth century.

3. The Passover is clearly commanded to be celebrated to the church in Corinth:

“Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:7–8 NKJV)

It is important for both Jews and Gentile Disciples of Yeshua, to get free from the false teachings and traditions of Catholic Christianity and the pagan holidays that were adapted by the Churches, and return to the same faith and roots of Yeshua’s faith and teaching that all came and are based on the Torah, and nothing else!

There is that old Gospel song, that was sung in the American frontier and has long been forgotten and needs to be restored:

Give me that old-time religion
Give me that old-time religion
It's good enough for me
It was good for our mothers
It was good for our mothers
And it's good enough for me
It was good enough for Moses
Give me that old-time religion
It's good enough for me
It was good enough for Jesus
Makes me love everybody
And it's good enough for me
It was good enough for Paul and Silas
Give me that old-time religion
It's good enough for me
It will take us all to heaven
Give me that old-time religion
And it's good enough for me

Brad TV Video Teaching – Emor (2022)

Transcript of a video teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. My name is Joseph Shulam. And in partnership with Brad TV in Korea, we are going through the whole five books of the Law of Moses, according to the weekly portions that are read in all the synagogues around the world on this same Sabbath.

Today we’re reading a section that is called Emor, which in English says, “And the Lord said to Moses.” Emor means said. And it’s commanding the priests of the sons of Aaron about their purity laws and about their responsibility to their fathers and mothers and children and sisters and unmarried sisters and married sisters.

But the main section of this portion of the Torah, has in it, the catalog of the times and the seasons and the holidays of the Lord. It appears in Leviticus chapter 23 from verse one. And I want to concentrate on this because I think it’s a hot topic in all of the Christian world today; when we talk about holidays and seasons and the commands of the Lord that are also in the New Testament and which are the holidays that the apostles and Yeshua himself, Jesus himself celebrated.

Christianity today is by the majority far far from the celebration of the commanded holidays in the New Testament. And we’re going to get to it, this teaching.

So, the feast of the Lord, most people say the Jewish feast. There is no such a thing as the Jewish feast. Everywhere where the holidays and the feast and the celebrations are mentioned in both the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, it talks about the feast of the Lord, not the Jewish feast, but the feast of the Lord commanded to the children of Israel when they received the law in Mount Sinai.

So, before I enter into the feast of the Lord, I want to go to the New Testament to a text that has been used, is being used and was very popular in the days of the fourth century, by the so-called church fathers.

And the text is from Galatians, Paul’s letter to the Galatians chapter four from verse eight. That’s the text that the church fathers and Crisostomo used more than anybody else. He was the Pope when the center of the church was in Constantinople and Istanbul. Istanbul is Constantinople named after Constantine the Roman emperor that supposedly converted to Christianity but he didn’t. It’s a myth that he converted to Christianity. But he used Christianity for his own political needs.

So, I am reading now from Galatians 4:8-11:

“But then indeed when you did not know God, you served those, which by nature are not gods. But now after you have known God or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn us again to the weak and bigly a elements to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I’m afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.”

So, this is the mother text that is used, I should say misused,
by 99.9% of Christianity, in the history of the church from the fourth century till the 21st century; to deny the right of the Christians, of the believers of the disciples of Jesus to celebrate the seasons and the feast of the Lord.

Now, who is Paul talking to? The rule here, in understanding Paul’s letters, all of his letters, is to know Paul was a lawyer. He studied under the chief justice, the chief judge of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, his name was Gamaliel. And we know a lot about him. We have pages and pages and pages of history and discussions and rules, which he made.

And Paul was his disciple. He mentioned that several times in his letters. And what would he study under Gamaliel? Did he study macrame, maybe knitting, maybe cooking? No, he studied law because Gamaliel was a law teacher. Not a chef in the Bulgarian restaurant in Jerusalem in the 1st century. So, he studied law and he writes like a lawyer. Not like a pastor, not like a priest, but like a lawyer. And a lawyer is usually very consistent and exact in what he wants to say.

So anytime that Paul uses the word, you, he talks to the Gentiles and I can prove it to you. If you look at Ephesians 2:10-11 and in many places, you Gentiles. When he talks to the Jews and to the Jewish disciples he says us, we, ours. Not yours, ours.

So here he says, “But then indeed when you did not know God, you served those, which by nature are not gods.” Anybody that reads this text automatically should know that there’s not a day in the history of Israel, from the time that God called Abraham to come to the land of Canaan, in which Abraham and his seed did not know God. From the day that God called Abraham to leave his house, his family, his city, his country and to come to the land that he will show him, the land of Canaan, Abraham knew God. That’s why he left the big city of Ur with his father. And then in the big city of Haran. It’s like living New York and going to Podunk Kentucky. Yeah?

That’s how Abraham’s journey was. He left the big famous city, capital of the Assyrian empire, to come to a land that was torn to pieces with the Hivites and the Prevites and the Jebusites and the Philistines and the Girgosites, people from all over Asia and Europe gathered over here trying to get to Egypt. Was the Landbridge.

So, he’s talking to the Gentiles. And did the Gentiles have more holidays or did the Jews have more holidays or did the Bible have more holidays?

Well, I have here 14 pages from Wikipedia. Roman festivals dated to the time of the New Testament. 14 pages of holidays. I see, it is listed month-by-month. So here you have by date. Month-by-month by date. Let’s take February. We’re in February right now, let’s take February.

The 1st of February, a celebration of the mother and queen. Queen of heaven means Sospeter Juno. Juno Sospeter. 1st of February was her celebration. The 5th of February was Dies natalis, in the temple of Concordia on the Capitol hill. Yeah, on the 13th of February was the feast of Faunus. On the 13th of February to the 22nd of February, was Parentalia, the celebration of your ancestors that died and members of your family that died.

And the 15th of February, Lupercalia. Lupercalia. Lupos means wolf. And Rome was born from a she wolf that fed Ramos and Romulus the two babies and raised them, a she wolf. That’s on the 15th of February. On the 17th of February, was the oven festival, Fornacalia. Yeah? And celebrating the bakers, I guess, the people who use the ovens. And then you have Feralia, the public observation of Parentalia. On the 21st. On the 22nd is Caristia. The celebration of a meal provided by all the family and shared in the spirit of love and forgiveness, on the 23rd of February, in honor of Terminus. On the 24th of February, it’s the feast of Regifugium. And on the 27th of February, the feast of the horse-races just in front of the month of March.

And this goes month after month. I am talking about 14 pages full list of Roman holidays. Almost every day of the month. If I look at March, from the 1st of March, all the way to the 31st of March, every day was a holiday for something in Rome.

So, Paul is not talking about the seven biblical holidays. He is talking about holidays that are celebrated, that are by nature, celebrating those who are not gods. That’s not the biblical holidays.

Although the church fathers attributed that to the biblical holidays and prevented Christians from keeping the outright command in the New Testament for Christians to keep some of the holidays. Especially the Passover.

If you open your Bible in first Corinthians chapter five and read verse seven and eight, you’ll see that Paul commands the church in Corinth which was not 100% Jewish church, it was a majority of the people that were not Jews, they were Greeks, and came from pagan background. And he says, “clean up the leavened among you. And let us therefore celebrate the feast because Christ is our Passover.”

It doesn’t say don’t celebrate the feast. He says, you are unleavened bread. Talking to the Gentiles in Corinth, you are unleavened bread. Pure without leaven. Leaven is a symbol of sin. The leaven of the Pharisees Jesus talks, about it’s a symbol of sin. Yeah? And he says, you are unleavened bread, let us therefore celebrate the feast. Doesn’t say, don’t celebrate the feast. It says celebrate the feast. Why celebrate the feast? Because our Passover lamb, Christ is our Passover.

So, here we are now in the Torah, in the law of Moses, in the book of Leviticus. And we are in chapter 21. And we find out the laws of the priest. And in chapter 23, that’s how it starts. Verse one of chapter 23. “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, the feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy, holy convocations, these are my feasts, says the Lord.”

Okay, the first one of all, I would say, is the mother of all the feasts for not only for Jews, for anybody. And we have that in Isaiah, specifically stated, is for the Gentile. The Sabbath is given to the Gentile. They deserve it just like anybody who works six days a week deserves one day of rest. And it says,

“Six days shall work be done. And the seventh day is a Sabbath day. A solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it. It is a Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwelling places.”

Let’s take this Sabbath a little bit into a deeper sphere. Deeper meaning. The world was created in seven days. The book of Genesis starts, the first verse of the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible has seven words. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Seven words in the Hebrew.

And then that pattern of seven is repeated. The world is created in seven days. And if you start following that pattern of seven in the whole Hebrew Bible, then you’ll find out that there is a geometrical pattern of seven that follows through in much of the dealings of the children of Israel throughout our history.

So, he says, this is the feast of the Lord. God says, this is my feast, in verse one and two of Leviticus 23. And verse three says you shall work six days. These six days are for you to work. Not for you to loaf, not for you to have fun, not for you to sit on the easy chair and watch others work and ask them to support you and to finance you and the government to give you the money.

No, six days you shall work. It’s a command. You shall work six days. And when you work six days, on the seventh day, Sabbath day, it’s a solemn rest. Solemn rest in the Hebrew language means full rest. Yeah, you have a right to rest. You’re not a slave. You’re a free person. And you have a right to rest, to spend time with your children, with your wife, with your neighbors, do whatever you want to, but you don’t have to work. It’s a privilege. It’s not a burden. Some Christians talk about the Sabbath is as if it’s a burden.

And that’s actually a new thing. Why? Because in the history of Christianity, Sunday became the Christian Sabbath day. Yeah? They moved it from the seventh day to the eighth day. It became the Christian Sabbath day. And in many of the countries in Europe, they had Sunday laws. Shops were closed and public transportation was closed, and only in the 20th century with the breakdown of the system, not only the religion and the faith, but breakdown of the whole western civilization and morality with it, they dispensed with any kind of Sunday laws in the west.

But the seventh day, you deserve rest. You don’t wanna rest? You wanna do something else? It’s up to you. Nobody’s gonna come with the police to arrest you. Not in Israel and not in Jewish history. But it’s a gift from God. It’s a gift from God.

This morning I was driving to the office from my home and I heard the Orthodox Jewish rabbi of the city of Odessa in the Ukraine, that was heavily bombed both by sea and by air, and he is a medic, besides being a rabbi, he’s a medic. I think he’s a doctor, actually, not a medic. He’s a doctor. And he said it very clearly, “It is a great privilege to work in the hospital and to heal people on the Sabbath day and to perform surgeries on the Sabbath day, because all the laws of the Torah are suspended in order to save lives medically.”

So, some Christians think that Jesus eliminated the Sabbath by healing on the Sabbath day. No, it is commanded. He had to heal because life is more precious than any of the commandments, except three. And they are incest, murder and the handing over of your friend, your brother, your partner, to the enemy. Those are the three commands that you die and you don’t pass them. All the other commandments you can break them in order to save lives.

So, the Sabbath day is one of the seasons of the Lord. Then after that, you have the 14th day of the first month, which is Nisan which is usually in March, April, in the Gregorian calendar. And it is the month of Passover. I already quoted to you from first Corinthians 5:7-8 and told you, Christ is our Passover. And Paul is telling that to the Gentile church in Corinth, let us therefore celebrate the feast. And now not only clean your house from leavened, clean your hearts from malice, Paul says. Not only your house, clean your hearts from malice, preparing for the Passover.

So yes, dear brothers and sisters, this very important chapter, has the catalog of all the feasts that God commanded his children. Not only Israel, his children. Because if you read Isaiah 58, you’ll see that he’s talking to the Gentiles, saying, celebrate the Sabbath. Take care of God’s business on the Sabbath day. Enjoy yourself, take care of your family. To the Gentiles also in Isaiah 58. Yes. And the same thing is true in other prophets as well.

So, folks read the Torah. Distinguish when you read the New Testament, especially in Paul’s letters between us and you and see what the word of God gives you to enrich your life. These seasons of the Lord, holidays of the Lord, are historical.

They’re also cosmic because they all have to do with the setup of the stars. For example, I read to you from the book of Leviticus that the Passover is on the 14th day of the month. And when you have a lunar month like Israel does, other countries and other cultures have lunar months, also in Asia they have lunar months, 28 day months. The 14th of the month is a full moon. It has something to do with the cosmos.

Not only with the agriculture, which is Passover at the beginning of the wheat harvest. The day after the Passover day, you start the wheat harvest. Even if it falls on the Sabbath day, you break the Sabbath day to start the wheat harvest. And even if the harvester says no today is Sabbath I don’t work on the Sabbath.

You tell him harvest, harvest, harvest. The rabbis, the priests tell him to harvest because the harvest is more important. The beginning of the harvest is more important because it has to do with the life. Sustaining of the life, bread. And he starts on the Sabbath day, the harvest. Yeah?

So, all these things are so important dear brothers and sisters. And I just want to urge you read it. Read the portion of the Torah that we are talking about. It’s from Leviticus 21:1, ends in Leviticus 24:23. And the portion from the prophets that is parallel from Ezekiel 44:15-31. And from the gospel, we read Matthew 13:1-30. Read these things. Enrich yourself by reading the Bible.

I’m going to just say something that may not be politically correct, but it’s okay. I’m not American and I don’t have to be politically correct. I’m Israeli Jew, disciple of my Lord, Jesus of Nazareth. And you can be disciple also of Jesus of Nazareth. Of Yeshua, in Hebrew.

What’s not politically correct, that I want to say is this; the law and the prophets and the gospels and the letters of the apostles, all of them are one unit. They are a unit that starts in Genesis and ends in Revelation. And if you ignore any part of it, you are missing something that will make your picture of our faith in God and in the Messiah, in Jesus, missing. It’s like having a puzzle with many pieces, and if you leave one piece out, the puzzle is incomplete.

That’s why you should be reading from Genesis, all the way to Revelation. And don’t trust anybody except the word of God and the holy spirit first, and after you trust the word of God and the holy spirit leading you, only then trust your pastors and the leaders of your church.

God bless you all. Keep reading. Shalom, from Jerusalem.

My Tattooed Reminder (2021)

The Torah reading this Shabbat is from the portion “Emor”, from Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23. The reading from the prophets is from Ezekiel 44:15-31. From the New Testament, 1 Peter 2:4-10.

Like every week the readings from God’s word are all interesting and full of important things that we today need to understand and remember to put what we can to practice.

From the Torah I want to discuss with you Leviticus 21:5:

“They shall not make any bald place on their heads, nor shall they shave the edges of their beards nor make any cuttings in their flesh.” – Leviticus 21:5 [NKJV]

From last week’s reading Leviticus 19:28,

“You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord.” – Leviticus 19:28 [NKJV]

The text from Leviticus 21:5 is specifically speaking to the priests who serve the Lord in the Tabernacle. The text from Leviticus 19:28 is speaking for all the people of Israel: “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord.”

These texts from God’s Word are so very relevant for today’s Western culture. Do you think that God has changed His mind from the time that He gave the Torah to the children of Israel? Do you think that now in the 21st Century God loves it when His children tattoo and even the pastors cover their bodies with tattoos?

The tattoos themselves are equated in these words from God’s word like cuttings in the flesh. The Word of God teaches that our bodies are the temple of the Lord. We believe that the Holy Spirit of God dwells inside of us, this is a teaching from the Old Testament and from the New Testament.

Tattoos are a hallmark of pagan culture. Humans are known to have had tattoos for the last 12,000 years. The practice of cutting and tattooing bodies was spread around the world before 5000 BCE, in cultures as diverse as East Asia and the Americas.

The God of Israel who gave us the Torah, the prophets, the writings, and the New Testament has forbidden His children, the children of Israel, to participate and disfigure their bodies with cuttings and tattoos. I have one tattoo of a Star of David that I did together with all the boys and girls in my neighborhood in Jerusalem when I was 13 years old.

The reason that all the kids in our neighborhood did the same tattoos of a Star of David was because most of the parents of our friends had numbers tattooed on their arms by the Nazis when they entered the labor and death camps in Poland, Germany, Austria, Holland, Ukraine, Latvia, and Lithuania.

We all did something stupid because we didn’t know the Torah and most of us didn’t know God. I would remove the small tattoo from my arm, but I am keeping it to remind me of how stupid I was as a young teen. The Torah teaches us to honor our bodies and keep our selves pure from any pagan signs and practices.

Okay, so, if you, like me, already have tattoos on your body, there is not much that you can do other than to regret putting tattoos on your body. You can teach others of the youth not to do it. You can teach that it is expressly against the will of our Creator and it is something ugly and unnecessary, nor does it add anything profitable to our lives.

OK, if you are a traditional Christian that knows only the New Testament and you don’t have respect for the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation – you still ought to consider that God said to Israel to not cut or tattoo your body. If it was something positive God wouldn’t have forbidden His children, the children of Israel, from doing cuts on their bodies or tattoos.

Now let me speak to families with young children and teenagers. It is wise to share and explain without anger or condemnation that as disciples of the Messiah we are chosen people. We have a special mission to be the light of the world. We are to be examples of a good and holy life and of good and holy behavior.

Please consider the following texts from the New Testament:

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” – Romans 12:2 [NKJV]

“And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight…” – Colossians 1:21,22 [NKJV]

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” – 1 Corinthians 6:19 [NKJV]

I realize that we have freedom in Christ, but freedom is not unlimited, and it has God given boundaries that we ought to honor and keep. All that God has given us, is for our good, and for our life of purity and faith. Ignoring God’s advice and commandments is a mistake that might turn out into sin!

Peter, More Than a Fisherman (2020)

Shabbat Emor: from Leviticus 21:1 - 24:23 from the prophets, the Haftarah: Ezekiel 44:15 - 44:31. And from the New Testament: 1 Peter 2:1-17.

The most significant issue in these chapters of the Emor portion of the Torah is the rules for those Priests who serve God in the Tabernacle. There are rules that forbid a Cohen (priest) to even attend a funeral of family members who are not father, or mother or brother or sister.

The clothing of the priests is specified, the way they wear their hair is specified, what they eat is specified. It is very serious work to serve God in the holy precinct of God’s Temple.

These rules for the priests and their service is something that we don’t really understand because we serve our communities in a very secular world, with a very secular paradigm.

In fact the Protestants and especially the Pentecostal movement that bandies the “Holy Spirit” and being full of the Spirit of God, has not to consider the serious consequences of being a servant of God.

The principle that Yeshua gave in the Gospel of Luke is something that ought to put the fear of God into every one of us who wants to serve God. This is the rule that Yeshua gives us:

“But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.” – Luke 12:48 [NKJV]

We all know that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, but we all ought to take this principle much more seriously. This principle includes financial issues and family, and time schedules, and our relationship to the national authorities and the taxes and every aspect of our lives.

I recommend for you to read the book of Leviticus and see what a serious thing it is to serve the Almighty God.

The second thing that we have in this Shabbat’s reading, the catalog of the feasts of the Lord, the biblical holidays that Yeshua and His apostles celebrated and encouraged others to celebrate, including the congregation in Corinth that was not strictly Jewish and had non-Jewish members like Erastus the Treasurer of the City of Corinth.

In Corinth there is a very big (more than 5 foot long and two foot wide) marble plaque with the name of this Erastus the City Treasurer. He had donated a building for the city of Corinth.

The first time that I visited Corinth in 1965, the plaque was recently discovered and was beautiful. Last year I was there in Corinth again and the plaque of Erastus was just lying outside exposed to the elements and the letters were almost unreadable.

Criminal negligence on the part of the authorities who are in charge of the priceless archaeological treasures.

The New Testament reading this next Shabbat is from 1 Peter 2:1-7. It is a very important reading that contains a very famous “Midrash” (a rabbinical homily) based on several passages in the O.T. that deal with stones.

This very old, famous and important Midrash is based on the following text:

“The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalm 118:22–24 [NKJV]

In this Midrash that Peter is using is a chain of scriptures that have stones in them. In Ephesians 2:21,22, the conclusion of the same Midrash is used to describe the body of the Messiah as a building (of course made of stones).

The oldest source of this Midrash is from Qumran, from the Essene community that set out to live in the desert of Judea to prepare for the coming of the Messiah and the salvation of Israel. Peter brings here, from the same Midrash, also the words of Isaiah.

“Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily.” – Isaiah 28:16 [NKJV]

The apostle Paul uses the same Midrash in Romans 9:33. This is important because it shows that the apostles, were familiar with the Qumran community’s teachings, as was Josephus Flavius.

Peter also uses, like in the Qumran source, a third text which is from Isaiah 8:14,

“He will be as a sanctuary, But a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense To both the houses of Israel, As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” – Isaiah 8:14 [NKJV]

What we have here is a classical rabbinic method of making a chain of texts from the word of God that deal with the same topic and drawing from a prophetic conclusion in a context different from the original settings of each of the originating texts.

I personally love the method and love to see that Peter was not in any way an ignorant Galilean fisherman, but a scholar of the Torah and of the prophets and I would add, the inter-testament Jewish, Greek and Hebrew literature.

Another point that just fascinates me is that when Peter is quoting from Isaiah 8:14, he omits the last part of the verse that is speaking of Jerusalem. The reason is clear he is sending this letter: “To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.”

The message that Peter wants do convey is not to the Jerusalemites, but to people who live outside of Israel. Maybe Jewish brothers who have traveled outside of Israel because of persecution, maybe non-Jews who have been recently converted.

Of course this Midrash is messianic because the bases of the Midrash is from Psalm 118:21-27. This is clearly a messianic text that starts with the rejection of the cornerstone that holds the whole building together and ends with “Hossana and Hatzlichana”, “Please save us and Please give us success!”

This is what the people of Jerusalem were singing when Yeshua came to the city riding on a donkey and the crowd recognized him as the Messiah and son of David, the King!

“Let Us Therefore Keep the Feast” (2019)

The Torah portion that will be read on Shabbat is Emor, Leviticus 21:1 – 24:21, and from the prophets, Ezekiel 44:15-31. From the New Testament our reading will be from Luke 5:9-6:49.

The Emor portion of the Torah has some very interesting concepts that I would like to mention, especially for my brothers and sisters in the world today, and of course it includes ourselves and our brothers in Israel.

The first part of the Torah reading gives us instructions for the priests of Israel that are serving in the Temple.

1. Service in God’s House will take away your freedom of choice.
2. You have to separate yourself (be holy – sanctified) from the rest of the people of God.
3. You cannot come as you are into the holy sanctuary. You have to prepare for it and wear the right clothing. You cannot follow the fashion of your generation and get any kind of haircut that you wish or that others might have.
4. When a good friend dies, you can’t go to the cemetery and participate in his burial, because you are a priest of God, and going to the cemetery might make you ceremonially unclean for that day. You have to always be ready to perform your duty in the Temple of the Lord.
5. You can’t desecrate your body with tattoos or with cutting marks on your body. You have to keep your body pure as a servant of God.
6. You can’t take just anyone whom you choose to be your wife. You have to take a wife who is a virgin and from your own people. (For today this means a fellow disciple of the Messiah.)
7. How many men will be willing to become “preachers” today if there were these limitations on their freedom of choice? Today many want to have the honor of being servants of God, but not many would be willing to make the choice of being set apart, sanctified, as servants of God.
8. The second big topic in this Shabbat’s reading is the feasts of the Lord. This is a real big issue in the Bible, but it is even a bigger issue in Christianity. The issue is big in the church, not because what is written in the New Testament, but because what has happened in Christian history (the Catholic churches) between the 4th and the 6th century A.D. (or the way that it is called universally, C.E. - Christian Era) During that time, and even starting a little earlier, the paganized Christian churches were alienating themselves from Israel and the Jewish Nation, and even from the Jewish disciples of Yeshua. They were alienating from Israel for clear political internal Roman issues. It is all well documented, and there is no question about it. (If you are interested to see some of the most striking documents of this systematic anti-Jewish and anti-Torah and anti-Old Testament campaign that the Catholic church set in motion, please read the following: John Chrysostom, Against the Jews. Homily 3

Yeshua and the apostles kept all the biblical feasts of the Lord, and this is clear from the New Testament itself. In fact, Paul commands the church in Corinth to keep the Passover with a clear command.

Read 1 Corinthians 5:7-8. You will find the command: “Let us therefore keep the feast.” The reason is also given “Christ is our Passover.” The how-to is also given:

“For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”