This week’s Parasha

Text Box: This weeks reading gives us the commandments pertaining to the great feast of Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. The scapegoat is established as a means of atoning for sin of the children of Israel. This is told in Verse 16:29 that it is a permanent statute for you. For more on the Day of Atonement click here. Laws of immoral behavior are forbidden in detail through out chapter 18 and chapter 19 addresses idolatry and “Sundry laws.” These Sundry laws from verse 9-37 address a variety of items. Two of them really jumped out at me this week. One because of the timelessness of it and most people attributing it to later writings in scripture and the other from personal experience. The first is the from verses 17-18. “You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the L-rd.” This last part of loving your neighbor as yourself is often attributed to Yeshua (Jesus) as something new and a deeper understanding of the law. Many people tie it to the releasing of the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth as if it is something new. We see here that the Jewish people for thousands of years had already been instructed to show mercy while seeking justice. You are to reprove your neighbor, for if we don’t hold each other up, it is very easy to slide into the easy standards of the common day. But this reproof is to be done in love. Approaching those with the same compassion and understanding you would seek when you have fallen. G-d has always been a G-d of compassion. The second item is relates to this concept in its application. It is verse 19:32. “You shall rise up before the gray headed and honor the aged, and you shall revere your G-d, I am the L-rd.” This verse has been brought home to me about a year to a year and a half ago for the first time. I was on the bus going downtown in Jerusalem when a teenaged girl of about 16 got up to offer me her seat. I told her that it was women first and then men but she insisted, saying I was a Zekan. (Or is it Zeken. I always get it confused.) I didn’t know the word so I did sit to make her happy. When I looked up the word when I got home I found it to mean an old man. I was shocked. Sure enough I did see the young lady a few days later and mentioned I wasn’t an old man. She responded by turning to scripture as she pointed out this verse to me. What was I to say. My hair has been graying a lot in the last few years and how can I argue with G-d. Better yet why would I want to. The only thing that was hurt by my taking the seat was my own pride. But why? Why was it hard for me to accept that I was being considered an old man. I realize it is my own cultural upbringing in American. In America the older people are not respected by most of the population. I am yet to see a person get up on the bus to offer their seat to a white or gray haired passenger standing beside them. I look back at my own days of a teen and realize that if it were not for my parents teaching the values in our family to respect our elders, that there was nothing to encourage me to act in the manner I now receive. But if we were to all think of loving our neighbor as ourselves we would certainly be showing a lot more respect to those around us. We wouldn’t be disregarding the wisdom of our elders. Selah

Standing Strong

A Messianic Jewish Congregation with an outreach to Believers in Israel

Apr 28—After the Death & Holy Ones

Lev 16:1-18:30           Lev 19:1-20:27

Ezek 22:1-19               Amos 9:7-15

Matt 23:1-37                Luke 18:1-8

Gal 5:16-26                 Jam 5:1-11