Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Who knows this guy?
Who remembers this guy?
Lawrence Turo.
I mean, think about the things you learn at Shalom, Macon.
Have you ever actually known Mr. T's real name?
That's it. Lawrence Toro. That's who that is.
I was so blessed to have gained this deep insight while preparing this message for you. I never met him as Lawrence. I don't know him out of character. I know him as clubber Lang from Rocky three. I know him as ba Barakas from the A Team. And the question is, in character, at least. Would you describe Mr. T as a humble man?
I don't think that's the word I would use. Beyond his demeanor, even his look was anything but underrated, right? From the clothing, the muscles, the haircut, the mohawk, the mannerisms, and, of course, the gold.
The gold, right. The jewelry. Gaudy, strong, prideful.
Now, having used the bat phone as my intro last week and Mr. T this week, you might be wondering what I'm actually spending my time on during the week, studying and preparing these messages. But Mr. T and his proud appearance had some relevance for me this week. As I read and studied the portion, a question emerged. Look at this right here.
This just sunk into my spirit as I thought about this.
How excited do you think Israel would have been to have Mr. T at the golden calf incident?
Imagine how much bigger they could have made this thing with all that gold.
That's not really the question. I do have questions. I'll tell you those in a.
There's a good. You can get rid of Mr. T. Darren, there's a good bit of talk in this week's Torah portion about jewelry and quite a bit of pride, actually, to go along with it.
And I'm not sure that that jewelry has ever really been given enough attention. It's very easy to gloss over those verses, but there's something about jewelry and pride and the Torah and Israel that's pretty amazing once you see it. And, yes, it is a bit of an unorthodox connection. Mr. T and the Torah, right. Although, as I did think about this, Mr. T. That would have been an incredible nickname for Yeshua.
Mr. T.
Mr. Torah. You get it? Word made flesh. Mr. T.
I had fun in my preparation this week.
If Mr. T and I have your attention, we can proceed. You ready?
I love to find weird things in the Bible, and they're in there, and then I like to try to understand them. You know, there are a lot. Anyone going to Malchut? I have a message about weird things in the Bible to share there. But for my beloved home community at Shalom. Michael, I wanted to bring you some weirdness as well. Here's one, straight to the point. Parsha Kitisa. That's where we are. This is the golden calf portion. Let me just read you a bit.
Then Adonai said to Moses, leave. Get out of this place. You and the people that you've brought out of the land of Egypt into the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your seed. I will send an angel before you. I will drive out all these people, head up into a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not move within the midst of you so that I do not destroy you along the way. For you are a stiff necked people.
When the people heard these dreadful words, they mourned. And no one put on any ornaments, any jewelry, any finery. Adonai said to Moses, say to the children of Israel, you are a stiff necked people. If I were going up among you for one moment, I would consume you. Take off your jewelry so that I may consider what to do with you.
So, B'nai Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, their jewelry from Mount Horeb, which is Mount Sinai.
Now, this is after the golden calf has taken place, okay?
This is after that event. So there's apparently a simple explanation we could draw here. They use their jewelry to make the calf. So God says, take it off.
But that's way too simple.
Nothing can be that simple.
He could have just said that, right? You sinned with that jewelry. Now take it off.
So, a few questions, and you can just leave those verses up there. Darren, that verse four and forward. First off, yes. God said, I won't go with you. Okay, that's something he said, I'm not going in the midst of you anymore. So that made the people very, very sad. It says they mourned for obvious reasons, but why did they take off their jewelry?
What is that? I mean, they were sad and mournful. And you could say, well, when you're mourning, you don't wear jewelry. But again, that's too easy.
That's too simple.
God says something really weird here as well. He says, so now take off your jewelry, that I may know what I shall do to you.
Okay. First off, it's God.
Didn't he already know what to do with them? Why did he need. Why was it a conditional thing? Take off your jewelry so that I will know what to do with you. That's weird. It's God. He knows everything.
More importantly, why did taking off jewelry help God know what to do with them. Have you ever thought about these things, or you just read it and say, jewelry weird. Took it off? That's what everyone does.
Finally, what does jewelry have to do with Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai? What does jewelry have to do with this? There are a lot of midrashic and spiritual explanations that for Israel, when they were at Mount Sinai, that they received two figurative crowns, the crowns of Torah, and Rashi describes those as the jewelry that were given symbolically there. But I want to speak literally about the third question and ask, what does the Torah mean when it says the children of Israel were stripped of their jewelry from Mount Sinai?
When did they get jewelry at Mount Sinai?
And the jewelry that they actually brought there was already given to the golden calf and burned up and put in ground up and gone, apparently.
So that's a lot of attention for jewelry in the Bible, isn't it?
Gets a lot of attention. We haven't even spoken about the fact that, Aaron, this is just a nice little bit of Bible trivia for you from jewish tradition. Aaron asked them about jewelry, right? He said, all right, here's what I want you to do. Go and ask your wives for all their gold and their earrings and everything. You know why Judaism says he does that? Because he was hoping that if he could get the husbands and wives in a fight, because when the husband said, let me have your earrings, and she said, I'm not giving you my earrings, Aaron said, I need them. I'm not giving them to you, that the fight would go on long enough, that they would delay long enough for Moses to come down the mountain.
Smart, Aaron. But that's not what we're talking about. Let's look into these questions that I asked you. First, I want to give credit to one of my inspirations for this message, Rabbi Hanok Waxman, modern commentator from Yeshiva Haretzion. I love his insight. It appeals to me so much. I hope it will to you as well.
But the third question is the one that I want to address first.
It actually gets answered first. To set the stage, they stripped themselves of their jewelry from Mount Sinai. And I asked you, where did they get jewelry at Mount Sinai?
What is this jewelry? Well, we need to go back in time for a moment. These chapters were in Exodus 33 here at Sinai after the golden calf. Let's go back to chapter 19 in Exodus. You remember it? It was a fairly significant moment in biblical history and in the history of the jewish people. Exodus 19, they are preparing for the giving of the Torah the giving of the ten commandments. Preparing. And where were they doing that, by the way?
Where was this happening?
At the foot of Mount Horev. Mount Sinai. It's the meeting of meetings. This is the marriage. This is the ceremony. This is the covenant of the relationship between them and God. God becoming, as he said, the God of his entire people. The covenant of marriage to be revealed. God descending in a cloud in some way. How do you prepare for such a meeting?
How do you dress for such a meeting?
Well, I would hope, in your finery and all its accoutrements and accessories.
Right. You'd show up. God even told them, you need to prepare three days. Get ready. Something special is coming.
So you show up decked out in your fanciest duds. Now, here's the problem. This is desert rabble at this time. These are former slaves that had just come out of Egypt.
Where in the world are they going to get their finest accoutrements and accessories?
Well, we go back further. Right? Back to Egypt. Actually, we go further back. We go back to Abraham. You'll recall the promise that was made to Father Abraham. Genesis 15. God said to Abram, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve. And afterwards, they will come out with many possessions. Right. And God, being a God of his word, saw to it that this happened. We forward from Genesis 15 now to Exodus twelve. Now, the sons of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, for they had requested from the Egyptians articles of silver and articles of gold and articles of clothing.
And then the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have their request. Therefore, they plundered the Egyptians. The better Hebrew here is stripped. They stripped the Egyptians of what?
Jewelry and clothes, silver and gold and clothing.
So there it is. That's not hard to arrive at that conclusion.
The finery of Mount Sinai is God's promise to Abraham coming to pass to the jewish people. In essence, God has given them an egyptian wedding gift of fine jewelry and fine clothing in which to show up to their own wedding ceremony.
You with me?
Now let's look at the wedding reception at Mount Sinai, Exodus 24. Here's the summary. You can read the details later. Moses comes down. This is after, right? Moses comes down. The people agree to the terms. All the words which the Lord has spoken, we will do. Moses writes it down. He gets up the next morning, he builds an altar at the foot of Mount Sinai. He sacrifices, sprinkles blood on the altar as a covenant sealer. The people, again consent to the terms of the covenant. He sprinkles blood on the people as the covenant sealer. Moses and the elders go up the mountain part of the way and celebrate. Then Moses goes all the way up, and he leaves Aaron and her in charge. Okay, that's a big, very fast summary of what happens.
Then there's a long break. That's chapter 24, 25 to 31 and a half is the tabernacle and the priestly garments and all. There's a big bunch of material right after that.
And then the end of chapter 31, Moses receives the tablets. They're called Luhot the tablets. Right. And apparently, we would hope the deal is done.
Here it is. We got the thing, we got the commandments, and then it gets really weird.
And for those of you who are upset or offended by me talking about the Bible being weird, I'm talking about the people now, so you can relax, though. The elders who had just gone partway up the mountain, had had, in essence, seen God, they also had witnessed the exodus, which clearly was a series of miraculous events that God, the creator of the universe, had done.
The same God they had seen on Mount Sinai, had brought them out of Egypt, and whose commandments they had just twice acknowledged, the first of which being, you shall have no other gods before me. Right?
And still they say this.
Chapter 32. Now, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled around Aaron and said to him, come, make us a God who will go before us for this. Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don't know what happened to him. Aaron said, tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, your daughters. Bring them to me. So all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. Then he took the gold from their hands and fashioned it with an engraving tool and made it into the cast metal calf. And they said, this is your God, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
That's strange, isn't it?
Having just seen the God of the universe do all this, just been at the foot of Mount Sinai, been delivered from Egypt to resort to this is weird.
And here's even more interesting things.
Just as Moses in the covenant ceremony had built an altar and sacrificed, now they do too, but not to God. Now, when Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast of the Lord. And just as Moses and the elders got up and feasted and celebrated in God's presence, they did too, but not with God.
So the next day, they got up early and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to engage in lewd behavior. Do you see the exact opposites occurring here? What is this?
This is a counter covenant. This is the anti covenant ceremony.
This is the rejection. The very same spot they married and entered into the covenant is the Very SaMe spot in which they betrayed it.
And as Moses comes down with the visible symbol, the tangible symbol of this thing that they had just agreed to, he smashes it into pieces on the ground because what else could he do?
And I ask you, what did they use to construct this anti covenant bovine monstrosity?
What did they use?
Gold from Egypt, from Sinai, from the covenant ceremony.
The jewelry, the gold that they received as a wedding gift from God and wore with pride to that ceremony, looking their best, they now used as a rejection of his gifts and relationship. Now, this could be compared to giving a gift, giving, giving a girl a beautiful, beautiful engagement ring. And I use female here because we're the bride. Women did not actually participate in the golden calf, you should know that. But this can be compared to giving this woman a beautiful engagement ring that you slaved to get this thing. Like, you worked really hard, you did ten incredibly difficult jobs to be able to afford to give this to her. And you give it and you present it only to immediately have her dedicate that special ring to another man.
God's gift of special intimacy.
The jewelry they donned becomes a symbol of infidelity.
And after what I would say is quite an ordeal, as Moses comes down the mountain, the Levites rally to his side.
Some 3000 of them are killed. The camp is in total disarray. There's a plague after all.
Me, Israel.
Like waking up after having way too many drinks at the wedding reception.
The realization settles in.
Chapter 33, nr question one.
The question you'll remember, the first one I asked you was when the people heard this sad word, they went into mourning and none of them put on his jewelry.
Why didn't they put on their jewelry?
Well, it becomes very obvious at this point.
God isn't going with us.
Apparently, we are no longer wed.
We have been divorced before the thing even really started.
But a shift is occurring here that you have to see in verse four.
The weight of their infidelity hits them. How could we have done this?
How could we have? Moreover, how could we ever conceivably again wear the gifts of his love?
You remember the text in Exodus twelve where it says they stripped the Egyptians of their gold? That same Hebrew now applies here when it says they stripped themselves of the gold.
But that is the moment actually right there, when they don't don the jewelry, when the hope actually breaks through. For one reason, it is at this moment that their pride turns to humility, and the seeds of repentance begin to stir within them. What does that mean?
Open to me, my sister. Song of psalms five two. According to Rabbi Yossi, the holy one said to Israel, my children, open to me in penitence, an opening as small as the eye of a needle. And I shall make an opening in me for you so wide that wagons and coaches could enter through it.
This moment is the eye of the needle.
Lewis Newman writes in an article about Teshuva, something that I love in that song of songs. Quote here, the rabbis use this rather unremarkable verse from song of songs to make a remarkable point. God wants us to engage in repentance, that if we make only the most minimal effort, God's gracious response will be many, many orders of magnitude greater. We don't need to do the work comprehensively or perfectly. We need only to make a start.
So the sons of Israel stripped themselves of the jewelry of Mount Horev. This was national repentance.
For a national sized failure, this was the moment of national repentance.
We all know that Moses was the intercessor, right? He's the perceived hero. And he was. He was the one who literally changed God's mind, at least in some opinions, about immediately destroying the entire nation, because that's what God's first response was. Remember Moses, I'm going to kill them all, and I'll do something through you. Plan B.
So Moses intercedes, but there's something you have to see about the intercession and forgiveness. I want you to remember here for 1 second the sacrificial system. You'll remember that intentional sin in the sacrificial system required something. You couldn't just bring the blood of bulls and goats and be forgiven for massive moral failure. What did it require?
Repentance of the individual. And there were four parts of that. Recognize the sin, confess it, abandon it, make restitution. The people had to accept their part in the failure. Remember what they are stiff necked people. I'm not going to go with them.
They had to accept their part, Moses intercedes. But if the people remain stiff necked, how can it work?
It can't.
And to that, someone might say, well, that's not grace. Thank God for Jesus. We don't have that stuff anymore. Well, let me tell you something. YEshUA also brings a gift called salvation.
And you can rely with 100% faith on his intercession. But can you become a disciple of YEshUa without repentance? Your own personal confession and repentance, can you do that?
No.
Can someone else do it for you? No.
God is justice.
He must be.
But a world without justice is no world, actually.
And only he can truly administer justice. But thankfully, certain concepts are so fundamental to the purpose and functioning of the world that God created them before the foundations of the earth. And do you know one of those things that he created that is so fundamentally important to the function of the world? And you?
Repentance.
Cheshuva is the word allowing humans the opportunity to return to God after sinning. You have free will and the possibility therein of spiritual growth and redemption. This is the compassionate nature of a forgiving God who provides a path for reconciliation even as tiny as the eye of a needle. If you will just open that.
It's so fitting then, that we then see chapter 34 with the 13 attributes. And here is where God says, here, God has heard the words of Moses, right? He's heard the words of Moses, that's good.
But now he has seen the hearts of the people and the change required that now he knows what to do.
It is fitting then, that as Moses goes up, he puts himself with the people. The people that have recognized their failure and opened a space even as small as the eyed needle. And Moses, beautiful, incredible. Moses, so Yeshua, like, intercedes. And he said to him, if your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. For how can then it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people.
And Nadonai passes before him in the description of who he is and who will be God. God the Lord, the Lord compassionate, gracious God, slow to anger, abundant and loving kindness and truth, showing mercy to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Yet by no means leaving the guilty unpunished, but bringing the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children to the third and fourth generation. What you hear there is, I am justice, but I am compassion first, which becomes one of scripture's most beautiful and oft used foundations for his people. To remember Joel two rend your heart, not your garments, and turn to Adonai, your God, for he's gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abundant in mercy. Jonah four for I knew that you are gracious and compassionate. God slow to anger and full of kindness. Psalm 86 but you, my lord, are compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, full of love and truth. Turn to me, be gracious to me. Psalm eleven he made his wonders memorable. Adonai is gracious and full of compassion. Psalm 116 Adonai is gracious and righteous. Yes, our God is compassionate, Nehemiah, but you are a God of forgiveness, merciful and compassionate. Second chronicles for Adonai, your God is compassionate and merciful. He will not turn his face away if you return to him.
This is our God. But it is not greasy grace repentance required.
How could they do it? How could they do it? How could they make that calf? How could they do that to God? I don't know, but they did. Actually, I do know. You know why? Because we do it too.
You might not want to put yourself on that level. But we forget the gifts of God. We trample them. We parade about sometimes like Mr. T in our own pride and decked out in the gifts God has given us. And yet we trample his good name with our bad behavior.
And we trade in I sung that song on purpose. We trade in beauty for ashes, which is exactly what they got in the golden calf. So I want you to think about what your life represents. How do you don the goodness to which you've been given the jewelry that God has put on you?
And I want you to thank him for it and wear it well, with honor and recognition to the one who gave it to you.
For all of Israel's trouble in this situation. And believe me, we're only in exodus. There's a lot more trouble to come.
But for all of Israel's trouble, next week we'll see the jewelry figure in one more time.
I won't spoil it, but chapter 35, verses 21 and 22, God redeemed the jewelry and the people redeemed themselves. The fourth part of repentance says, make restitution.
Maybe we'll talk about that next week. But they then constructed something beautiful with and for God.
Someone asked me recently, is there grace in the Torah?
Where is it found?
So listen, I'll tell you. After reading this story and knowing what's in the Torah, I pity the fool.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: Shabbat Shalom please visit our website, shalommaken.org. To learn more about us. Join our live services access other teachings. Sign up for our newsletter join our private network work that will connect you with our 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.
