Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Over the last couple of weeks and then culminating on Shavuot, we had, I don't know, a challenging discussion, maybe talking about the narrow gate and the hard road. And then Shavuot, we had some exciting news. And the guys, the tech guys are putting that into a three part series, which is going to be called.
Don't know yet, but it will be available. And if you didn't pick up that series, I want to encourage you to do it because I think it's very important for disciples. But while that series was going on, we started a new book of the Torah, Bamidbar, which in Hebrew means in the wilderness. Bamidbar, the book of numbers. And sadly, while we were talking about good stuff during that series, we missed the opportunity to cover some of the exciting details of the parsha.
And so I wanted to back up just a bit and let you in on the. On the excitement.
They counted from the tribe of Sibeon, 59,300. From the sons of God, their generations according to their families, to the ancestral households and the count of names of every male, 20 years and upward. Everyone available to go out with the army. Those counted from the tribe of Gad were 45,000 from the sons of Judah, their generations by their families, their ancestral households, the count of their names, all who would go out with the army. Those counted from the tribe of Judah were 74,000 from the sons of Issachar, their generations according to their families, their ancestor households by number of the names of every male, 20 years old and upward going out with the army, those counted from the tribe of Issachar were 54,000.
But the excitement doesn't stop there, because then we count the members of Levi, and you'll want to catch all those details for yourself. Do not miss the layout of the camp. The numbers. More numbers. There, see? The book is appropriately named numbers.
Are you excited?
I'm being a bit facetious about the Torah parsha, because it gets a bad rap. This opener of the book of numbers is usually the point at which, if you've undertaken the project of reading a bible in a year, the skimming begins.
Okay, it's kind of like, okay, where's the application here, God.
But have no fear. This week we sort of have. We've moved past.
We've moved into the second parsha of the book. I hit the highlights of that first one. This is Naso spoke to Moses, saying, take a census of the Gershonites, also by their ancestral house and by their clans.
Off to a good start. Right, more census.
Are you excited?
Thank you. Please. Just an FYI, it's actually cooler than it reads. Says, take a census. The actual. The Hebrew says, nasso, lift up the head. That's what God's saying when he says count, meaning, I want to see everyone. God sees us all. So, see, that's cooler, right, Naso? So much better.
But it gets better.
We count the Levites. Okay? They're very. Then we have all these diverse things that are happening in the parsha, right? We're expelling dirty people from the camp. We meet the sotah, the woman suspected of adultery. Then we meet the Samaritan. I mean, not the Samaritan. The. What are they called? Nazirites. Then we get the blessing of blessings from Israel, the aaronic benediction.
So that's got a lot going on.
I did a teaching on the Nazirite last year. I think I did something on the Sota recently. There's beautiful sections of scripture, but since we're talking about excitement and the book of the numbers, it's the end of the parsha that's going to get our focus today.
You can open your bibles if you have them. Very few people do these days, especially if you didn't read the portion. You're not going to want to miss this. Turn to numbers, chapter seven, verse ten through 88.
That's a lot of scripture to cover in a message.
When the altar was anointed, the princes brought their dedication offerings and presented them before Adonai. For Adonai had said to Moses, each day, one of the princes is to bring his offering for the altar's dedication. Bringing his offering on the first day was Nachshon, the son of Amminadab from the tribe of Judah. Now, with all of our previous talk about nachshoning it and Nachshon and courage and bravery, you would think probably that this would be the opportunity I would take hold of to give you something exciting from the portion.
Not even close.
Not even close.
Listen.
Bringing his offering on the first day was Nachshon, son of a minidab from the tribe of Judah. His offering was one silver plate weighing 130 shekels, one silver basin weighing 70 shekels by the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering, one ladle of ten shekels of gold filled with incense, one young bull from the herd, one ram, one male lamb a year old as a burnt offering, one male goat as a sin offering, and two oxen. Five rams, five male goats, five male lambs, one year old to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering. This was the offering of Nachshon's son of a mini dab.
You know what happens next.
On the second day, Nathaniel, son of Zuar, prince of Issachar, brought his offering. The offering he brought was one silver plate weighing 130 shekels, one silver basin weighing 70 shekels, according to the shekel of the say, do you want me to keep reading?
And then you know what happens.
On the third day was the prince of the sons of Zevolun, Eliab, son of Helon. His offering was one silver plate weighing 130 shekels, one.
You want me to keep going nine more times?
Twelve princes, twelve leaders, nine more times in almost exactly the same language, but definitely with the exact same offerings. We read the same story, and then at the end of the portion, the Torah takes all of those and totals them up for you to make sure we have the whole story, 75 verses of scripture, my friends, going over the twelve offerings now just stop.
Can you see it?
Can you feel it?
The power, the unbelievable power of that? Can you feel that?
My mom's face was the best.
Who's going?
The Torah dedicated 75 verses of scripture to say the same thing twelve times. Of course you can't feel it. It's not very exciting. It doesn't make any sense, actually, does it? You don't see it. Okay, listen, you're not alone. This is the point at which the Bible, in one year, folks, stop skimming and start skipping entire portions of the Bible.
And I understand. So today I want to share the lessons of one of the most boring reads in the Torah, one of the most seemingly superfluous usages of ink in the five books of Moses. Now, that should be exciting to you. Is it?
Thank you. Here's lesson one.
The Torah doesn't waste time, it doesn't waste ink, and it doesn't waste space. And the key here is to see beyond the print and seek to understand why it would be here and what we're supposed to do with it. Okay. The Torah doesn't waste space. Now, that. All that I said was a very long intro to point to these five lessons that I'm actually going to cover pretty quickly, because when you see them, there they are, and you can apply them starting today. These lessons, these are not things I made up. These things are drawn from a long history of biblical interpretation that has come before me. Some people are going to like the lessons that I'm going to give you. Some of you will not like them. What you do with it is up to you. The lessons. I told you, there's a reason or reasons that this is here. Okay.
Number one. Lesson one. The Torah doesn't take any. It doesn't waste opportunities. I'm going to give you some headings of the other four, but does anyone have any suggestions as to why the Torah might take this much time, space, and energy to repeat itself?
Have you ever, in your wildest imagination, asked yourself this question? Most people don't. Why would you? Any suggestions?
Fear of losing your history.
Say it again.
That's pretty good.
Equality, necessity, compounding, and intention. These are the lessons we're going to get here. Equality, necessity, compounding, and intention, in addition to everything matters. You got lesson one. Number two, equality. Each leader's offering is repeated to emphasize that each tribe and each leader was unique, even in the same offerings. Although they were identical, the intentions and the heart behind each of them were motivated by their own tribe's interest and generosity. The leaders were bringing it. The midrash goes into a lot of detail, exploring the significance of each set of items that each tribe brought and what they actually meant to that tribe. So the easy out here is to say, yeah, it's all the same words, but it means something totally different.
That's one traditional interpretation. Okay.
And there's this unity in diversity because there's a much more significant type of equality occurring here. You ready for this?
No tribe fails to contribute.
There is not one place where we read, but the tribe of Asher withheld its offering because it felt like it, or Dan held back because they couldn't budget properly for the gift.
Moreover, nowhere do we read Simeon Shloomiel, son of Zorishedai, didn't say, the sons of Reuben got me. They took care of my part. I'm cool.
I'm good. So and so is handling that, and I'm gonna let them handle it. And no one tries to give less than what they're capable of giving. You see that? Every single tribe shows up, and every single tribe gives to contribute, which leads to lesson three.
That lesson is about equality. Number two. Number three, necessity. The entire community shows up. I want you to remember who showed up to build the tabernacle.
Everybody showed up to build the tabernacle, and they finished it. Now they're in the place where they're dedicating it, and guess what? They all show up again.
Every tribe is represented because you ready for this. Support in a community must come from all who benefit from it.
The entire community shows up. It speaks to the importance of donations, for maintaining donations. Everything they brought was of value, equivalent value. And here's something else we didn't read. On the 12th day, it was the chieftain of the Naphtalites, ahira, son of anon, who showed up empty handed because he had a policy against donating to religious institutions, because they were all about the money.
In other words, as part of the community, contribution is expected and necessary.
Lesson four, compounding.
After all of the repetition, twelve times, I remind you, the Torah totals them up, we get a list. This was the dedication offering from the altar, from the chieftains of Israel upon its being anointed. Silver bowls, twelve silver basins, twelve gold ladles, twelve silver per bowl, 130 per basin, 70 total silver vessels, 2400 sanctions. Why? Summary. So what? It's a lot of stuff. Big deal. No, the Torah takes the time to spell out and show you what happens when a community comes together, puts all of their stuff in the pot, and says, here it is, what do you want to do with it? God, it's compounding in a certain kind of way, not like interest. I mean, we could do the math, right, we could assume it's a lot of stuff. The Torah doesn't waste space. It takes the time to print that out and show you the cumulative effort of the tribe.
Zah tribe. And they're all the same gifts individually, but when you bring them together, it goes to another level.
And number five, actually, that reminds me. Anyone remember super friends from the seventies?
Hall of justice? Wonder twins. Remember the wonder twins?
Purple. They were brother and sister. They had a little monkey named Gleek, and they would, their power was that they would come together and put their fists together and say, wonder twin powers, activate, activate. Form of. One of them would turn into something made of ice, the other one would turn into a. To an animal of some sort. Now listen, turning into a hammer made of ice is pretty cool. If you did that, I'd be impressed. Or Dave, if you turned into a tiger, that would be cool. Roar.
But they would always say, wonder twin powers, activate. And they'd put their fists together and this big spark would show form of an ice, hammer, form of a tiger, and then they'd go and conquer evil two with their combined powers. Cumulative, compounding effort of the two of them working together. It happens right here in the Bible. The wonder twin powers were inspired by numbers. Did you know that?
Number five? Intention. Each leader was committed to bringing an offering, the same offering, no variation. And yet, do you know something about those offerings? They were not kosher offerings. They were unfit offerings in three particular ways. First of all, they brought incense. An individual can't bring incense. Number two, they brought a chattat offering, a sin offering. You are only able as an individual. A sin offering must be brought with repentance and intention. And number three, they brought an offering on Shabbat, which also is a forbidden offering. You don't bring individual offerings on the Sabbath. So they all did this. They all brought their offerings, and they were wrong.
And where did God say, not going to take that? He told Moses specifically that, I want you to accept these gifts, and God received them with joy. Why the intention?
God likes givers. I'm sorry, that's just the way it is.
The midrash points out that because of these special circumstances. But I would say that God received them because they were all unified in their intention to do something together.
They all had the heart. No one leader took the opportunity to say, well, you know what?
These aren't kosher. No one tried to correct anyone. There was never any opportunity. No evidence of someone being holier than thou. Even if offeror number three knew well, this is a violation of Torah. He didn't say anything. He just showed up and contributed, because his intention was to be a part of giving to the community.
And God receives them because God likes it. You ready? Applications.
That was five points. Applications. Don't gloss over texts. Number one, when the Torah has something to say, 77 verses of having something to say, there's probably a reason. If it doesn't come to you, obviously, look it up. Look up a commentary. Show up here with questions. Go in the library, read, see what you find. See what the Bible is actually wanting to speak to you about something. Maybe the message is just personal for you that you'd never get from reading. Twelve repetitions of 130 silver bowls.
Don't gloss over text to equality. The language isn't actually the same.
There is a slight variation. Nachshon shows up on day one, and then that language, it says his offering was okay.
And ten other ones say his offering was. But on day two, after Nachon showed up, the language is actually a little bit different. It says, and this is pretty technical, but it says, he brought his offering. Okay, he brought his offering. His offering was, that speaks to Nachshon and ten of them. On day two, it says, he brought his offering. And when you read the Hebrew, there's one little letter missing from the word brought.
There should be a yud in this word, and there's not. And you know what the rabbis say? The rabbis say that number two, and I can't remember his name, who was number two. Who was number two? Who? Nathaniel. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's who it was.
Number two showed up after noction, brought his offering. And Nathaniel. Nathaniel went in and said, I can do better than that, and showed up to wow everyone with his offerings. And you know what? That little YUD that's removed from the word, it says that God diminished his offering. He said, no, no, you bring the same offering everybody else brought.
You know what? The point I'm making is, I don't care about your money. There's no special treatment for it. God doesn't care if you outdo everyone or show up. James says, don't treat the Rich better. There's all kinds of stuff about it. It's not about what you do or outdo people with. It's about the fact that you do and you participate equally.
We all give practice. The equality component is not measured in the fact that everyone gives the same amount either, because you know what? Not everyone can give the same amount. Some people can give a lot, some people can give a little. But what binds us together is the fact that everyone gives from what is appropriate for them to give.
Number three, necessity. Remember the half shekel tax?
No one is more. No one is less. Everybody shows up and gives. Support must come from all who benefit. I said, I understand cynicism about. Well, you know what? I've talked to many people who say, I don't tithe well. Tithing is a whole other thing. Tithing is something you do in Israel when there's a temple standing. But people say, I don't give offerings.
Mm mm. I'm not gonna support. Not gonna support it. You don't need the money. You need to be out there, you know, building wells, and I don't even know grinding maze for the poor in the aztec community of Tenakta Tlilan.
That's not right.
I understand that religious communities and televangelists and all kinds of people abuse money and have forever, from the beginning of religion, money has been abused.
But I'm going to tell you this, if that's the community you're a part of, and that's the way you feel about it, you're in the wrong community, and you need to find one you can get behind with your heart and be a part of it, there's a lot of different ways that we can show up. Now, listen, the phrase, the statement, support must come from all who benefit.
I'll ask you, do you benefit whether you're online or in person? Do you benefit from Shalom, Macon?
Well, you know, thing is, the teaching is the food that they serve. Don't like it. Too religious, too kosher.
You know, the climate's just never right in the sanctuary, either. Like, I just.
The music. Whew. Totally average.
But I do have friends there.
Those are my people.
I have community there. I feel supported in a meaningful way. Great.
That's a benefit.
Get on board.
Number five is easy. Sorry. Number four. Compounding. It's pretty self explanatory. And it's very easy to see when we all show up in a meaningful way to support things that happen. We see incredible things happen. We are a testimony to that. Over the last four years, people, resources, online streaming, community events. We're improving our facility to make more of that happen.
Cumulative effect of everyone showing up to support where they benefit from. Number five, intention. The why behind the what. And this actually sums it all up. I give to the community because I'm part of it. No more, no less. Think of the half shekel. I don't rely on others to carry the weight of it, because I'm equally a part of it. I understand that my contribution is needed and necessary to build the strongest version of the community, making it capable of serving others in the most meaningful way. And when we do that together, amazing things happen. Now, listen, if it's ever with a personal expectation that something may happen for you, I got to disappoint you on that.
Can't make that promise.
That's not why they showed up with their offerings. They expected nothing.
They wanted to honor God.
It's about the community. And no matter what amount, if someone.
Well, I can't give anything that matters. I mean, huh? To who?
It matters to God, and it matters to you. That's two really important categories.
It shows intention. It shows wanting to be counted. So, listen, where's the other place that the Torah chooses to repeat ad nauseam text? What's the other big thing in the Torah that is repeated? And you read it the second time, and you're like, why?
Any guesses?
That's it. Building the tabernacle. We get the whole story. We get the golden calf. Then we get the whole story again.
Is that ironic? Here again, we see a repetition of the text related to showing up and giving.
The people built the tabernacle. They provided it.
It would seem that Hashem intends us to get this point. It's not stated outright. There's nowhere in the thing that says, give, give, give. As a matter of fact, he says, for all whose hearts move them to do it.
And it can be boiled pretty simply down to this. There's no commandment like that because it's a matter of the heart. That's what it is. If your heart's in it, you support it, especially when it comes to building the community where you and your fellow members connect and grow. And I don't give messages on tithing and guilt giving. Do you know why?
They don't work.
And, like the Torah, doesn't waste time. I don't waste time either, or energy or breath. They don't work.
I don't talk about the malachi. Malachi promise. You know the proverbial tithing text, brothers, sisters, you pull out that wallet today, and I can tell you with certainty the windows of heaven are going to open up and out upon you is going to pour a blessing which you cannot contain.
Now get your checkbook out.
I know a lot of people who are very, very generous, and every time they write a check, they're not waiting for the windows of heaven to open. And you know what? The windows of heaven don't always open in material possessions and pour them out on you. I also know a whole lot of people who are dripping with money who give none of it away.
They have all the windows of heaven blessings. You could imagine if it were actually about material blessings. So I don't use these things. I don't talk about those things. I don't give manipulation messages about giving. Thank God I don't have to. And the reason is, because of everything I see here that's gone on over the last 15 years, actually, but especially over the last five, we have an amazing community who understands this. And so I'm not beating you over the head with it. I'm just trying to help you understand why it's in there and why it applies to us and what we're supposed to do with it.
Okay?
Now we have all of this. And here's the part where you're gonna either love me or hate me, because, as I said, we are going to. Part of our process right now is that we're expanding our building to make it more accessible for community and events and all these other kinds of things. I gave a message six months ago about builders, not bystanders. I want to tell you that we have raised two thirds of the money that we need to be able to do our kitchen and our entryway and our bathroom and all the things that are happening. That's incredible. Now, listen, I'm fully transparent here. For the people who say, I'm not giving to a religious institution. What do you need another building?
No, we don't need another building. We just need a kitchen, and we're going to expand the building that we have. That process is roughly about $700,000 when you put it all together. Not just a kitchen, everything else. So we have raised $450,000 in a pretty short amount of time.
Okay.
After camp de rote, we start the building. All the permits will be approved, and we'll get started. And so the place will become a disaster, and we'll knock everything down and build it again.
Not everything. Some things.
It's going to take a few months. But what I'd like to do is never convert anything that. We never convert any construction loan or anything that we have into a permanent loan. What I'd like to do is, at the end of the construction, I'd like to pay it all off, and we can handle a note. That's not like you can't be slave to the lender. I'm going to tell you something. There are some times when it makes sense that you borrow money versus spending all your cash. But the point is, I'm not giving you a Dave Ramsey course today.
The point is that I would like to see us be able to accomplish that by the end of the year. I think it would be absolutely phenomenal. So I'm just going to say this. All of that and everything that I had put together for this message, I had absolutely no intention of making it about pushing you for money. And that's not what I'm doing, because the reason is most of you are already doing it. Most of you are already giving. If you are, thank you. If you're not, consider it. Consider it. That's the thing. We're building something. You can do a one time gift. You can do ongoing giving. It's all great. We love it. We appreciate it. God, I think, is honored by everything that we do here. And I think the community is a testimony in and of itself to the power of what God is doing in our midst.
So I will say this. Unlike the Torah portion, I won't repeat that over and over and over again.
You might hear me say it again by the time it's all said and done, but I give that to you. So, equality, necessity, compounding, and intention.
As the chieftains were presenting their offerings before the altar, Hashem said to Moses, let them present their offerings for the dedication. You see, Midrash tells us Moses was a little apprehensive about this. Remember, two guys had recently died bringing strange fire. And these offerings were not exactly kosher.
So Moses had a little bit of apprehension, and God said to him, don't stop the people.
Let them bring their offerings. God says, let them come. They're supporting the community, and their hearts are for me.
So my prayer from our 77 verses of repetitive text is, may our hearts be equally intentional and supportive of the work that God is doing in our midst and that we are able to participate in. And as this parsha so beautifully says, may he make his face to shine upon us all.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: Shabbat Shalom please visit our website, shalommakin.org, to learn more about us. Join our live services, access other teachings, sign up for our newsletter, join our private network that will connect you with our great greater community from around the world, or contribute to the work of Shalom. Macon thank you for watching, and we look forward to connecting with.
