MAY 31, 2022 Leviticus 25:6-7 And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired man, and the stranger who dwells with you, for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land—all its produce shall be for food. Once again, we see, by virtue of this command, […]
MAY 30, 2022 Leviticus 25:1-2 And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord.’” During the Sabbatical year, the land of Israel was to lie fallow and be “released” from […]
MAY 29, 2022 Leviticus 25:1-2 And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord.’” During the Sabbatical year, the land of Israel was to lie fallow and be “released” from […]
A census report makes for difficult reading. Working through the details of tribal and family tallies can be an exercise in monotony, but Rashi found a sweet message about God's love underlying the dry census data. He explained that God enjoyed counting the Israelites because of his special affection for each person. According to his interpretation, the census is a reminder that the children of Israel are not just a collective whole. Israel is a nation composed of individuals.
All the people of God are real people. Moses and Aaron counted them according to their “genealogical registration by their families, by their fathers' households, according to the number of names, head by head” (Numbers 1:20). This method gave every Israelite the opportunity to tell his name and be counted as an individual of worth. Each person is valuable and unique, a special treasure to God.
In the Talmud, there is a discussion about Adam, the first man and father of all humanity. Why does all of humanity descend from a single human being? “To teach you that whoever destroys a single person is regarded as if he had destroyed an entire world [of people] and whoever saves a single person is regarded as through he had saved an entire world” (b.Sanhedrin 37a). The meaning of this teaching is that each person is as valuable as Adam, the first man. Though Adam was only a single human being, he held within him the potential of all humanity. So, too, each person shares that same potential. No person should be dismissed as simply a number or a cog in the wheel. Every human being is a whole world.
Moreover, the same Talmudic discussion points out that every person, regardless of race, is part of the same human family. The Talmud says, “Adam was created for the sake of peace among men so that no one can say to his fellow, ‘My father was greater than yours.'” We all have Adam as our common father. The same discussion points out that while we all come from the same prototype, we are all unique individuals:
[Adam was created] to demonstrate the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He. If a smith strikes many coins from one mold, they all look identical, but the most high King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, fashioned every man in the image of the first man, yet not one of them is identical to his fellow. Therefore every person is obliged to say, “The world was created for my sake.” (b.Sanhedrin 37a)
Yeshua told a parable about a shepherd who noticed that one of his hundred sheep was missing. A one percent loss is not terribly serious, but this particular shepherd had special affection and concern for every sheep in the flock. He left the ninety-nine and went out seeking the lost sheep, rejoiced when he found it and carried it on his shoulders back to the flock (Luke 15:1-7). From God's perspective, we are not a nameless, faceless crowd of people. Each person is unique, special and beloved. God cares for you personally. He is concerned with your concerns and seeks your well-being.
MAY 28, 2022 Leviticus 24:22 You shall have the same law for the stranger and for one from your own country; for I am the Lord your God. Sandwiched in between the instructions given in relation to the incident we discussed in the previous devotion is the commandment above — one law for all people. Where the congregation of the LORD […]
MAY 27, 2022 Leviticus 24:10 Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel; and this Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel fought each other in the camp. This may seem a strange passage to use for the purpose of a devotion and, frankly, considering what we […]
MAY 26, 2022 Leviticus 24:5-6 And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. … You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord. This is, of course, referring to the shewbread, or a better translation would be “the bread of the face (Presence).” These twelve cakes […]
MAY 25, 2022 Leviticus 24:1-2 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Command the children of Israel that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to make the lamps burn continually.” The seven branched lamp stand, the menorah, was to burn perpetually which is to say at all times and without interruption. The […]
MAY 24, 2022 Leviticus 23:42-43 You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. Very often, the Feast of Tabernacles is referred to as the “Season of […]
MAY 23, 2022 Leviticus 23:40 And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, is known for many things. It is […]
