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Nasso
(“Lift/Carry/Shlep!”) - The Principle
of Separation
The Torah
portion for this Shabbat is called Nasso from
the verb meaning “to lift, to take or to
carry (can have the connotation also of weights
in scales)”. It spans Numbers chapters four
through seven. Moses is asked to “take a
head count” as it were - conduct a census
of the 30-50 year-old men in the families of Gershon
and Merari, along with the Kohathites to perform
service in the Tabernacle and the Tent of Meeting.
These were select men whose sole responsibility
was the transporting and setting up and taking
down of the Tent of Meeting. Their job was to
shlep - but it was sanctified shlepping! This
parasha is all about making distinctions - holiness.
Only these men were allowed to do this.
Chapter
five concerns ritual defilement. Anyone with leprosy
or any bodily discharge or who had been in physical
contact with a dead body was to be sent outside
the camp until they were once again clean. God
was in the midst of the camp of Israel, and He
is holy, so we were to be holy. Uncleanness had
to be separated out.
Parasha
Nasso includes a section on the priestly test
for a woman accused of having committed adultery,
in what is as far as I can tell, the only mention
of “holy water" in the Scriptures.
Adultery, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, has
always been regarded as among the most serious
of offenses, and until the past century or so,
always carried severe consequences. Sadly, the
effect of a century of secularization, coupled
with our enshrining of immorality in movies and
on television, has been to desensitize us. We
have become jaded, so that, rather than be shocked
and horrified by it, we treat adultery as little
more than an everyday, if unfortunate, reality.
Adultery, however, was regarded as so serious
an offense, that Yeshua declared it to be the
only justifiable basis for divorce. I wonder what
He would have to say to us about watching morally
twisted soap operas, sexually suggestive television
shows and obscene movies.
This section
from the Torah also includes laws governing fraud,
and the making of personal and financial restitution,
and confession of such sins before God. But the
overriding theme in this week’s parasha
has to do with separation - the marking out of
particular individuals as distinct and separate.
On a purely temporary basis, some were to be separated
from the community of Israel for reasons including
leprosy, bodily discharges or having had any contact
with the dead.
But then
there was the separation of those who took a Nazirite
vow. Nazirite comes from the word meaning consecrated,
either in a religious or ceremonial sense, or
marked out as consecrated to high office - it
may also be translated crown or diadem.
For the duration of a Nazirite vow (no less than
30 days but potentially much longer) no wine or
strong drink was permitted; no grape juice, grapes
or even raisins - anything produced by the vine
was prohibited. Scholars suggest it may have been
a caution against drunkenness during the vow,
or else a renunciation of Canaanite [agri-]culture
and a recalling of having relied upon God in the
wilderness. The Nazirite was also required to
let his hair grow until the completion of the
vow, at the conclusion of which he would cut it,
and the hair would be burned on the altar. After
that he would again be permitted to enjoy the
fruit of the vine.
We also
find here the marvelous benediction God gave Aaron
and his descendants, the priests, to pronounce
over the sons of Israel which to this day is prayed
and chanted in synagogues around the world!
Parsha
Nasso concludes with a description of
Moses entering the Tent of Meeting - alone - and
God speaking with him directly from between the
cherubim atop the Ark Covering (Mercy Seat) of
the Ark of the Testimony. This, perhaps, is the
most significant of separations, for was it not
Moses who on several occasions had to intercede
before God to turn His righteous wrath away from
our people on account of our frequent transgressions
and thanklessness? Yet how is it that Jewish people
today are so quick to dismiss the mediation of
Yeshua as Messiah, by saying, “We don’t
need a middle-man!”? Really? Such claims
betray biblical illiteracy and a stunning ignorance
of our own history.
We have
always needed a mediator. The entire line of Kohanim,
priests, represented mediation. Among other things,
the book BaMidbar, Numbers, teaches us
the principle of separation. God, who is infinitely
separate, pure and just, cannot have communion
with sinful humanity without something first being
done to satisfy the due penalty of our sin. There’s
a clever saying I once heard and never forgot:
“The righteousness God requires is the righteousness
His righteousness requires Him to require!”
Thanks be to God He sent Yeshua to be the sin-Bearer
for all mankind.
Now it
is up to us to separate ourselves from those things
that hinder our walk with Him. Therefore,
since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding
us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and
the sin which so easily entangles us, and let
us run with endurance the race that is set before
us, fixing our eyes on Yeshua, the author and
perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:1-2a).
Shalom,
Rabbi Glenn
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