Mark Call

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a study of the set of several of the “most anti-paganism” and pro-Torah portions IN the Torah. It’s a theme that is repeated multiple times in Scripture, but perhaps nowhere else so clearly and unequivocally as in this parsha: When you come into the land, you shall not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. And when it comes to their idols, don’t even covet the gold and silver on them. Utterly detest them. Don’t even take an idol into your HOUSE, lest you be accursed like it!

The Erev Shabbat overview of the portion (Deuteronomy 7:12 – 11:25)

Mark begins the Sabbath Day “deeper examination” of the parsha this week a bit differently. The parsha begins with what ‘shall come to pass,’ but – by now – all of that HAS come to pass, the blessings and the things that shouldn’t have happened, but did, leading to an exile still in progress. So it’s time to start with some talk about “faith”, and what happened with a lack thereof.

The theme of a ‘snare’, if we forget YHVH and are instead seduced by idolatry permeates the parsha, of course. But there is an element of understanding that reveals just how far down that road we’ve gone as a society when we think about what the point of “debate” once was. To find Truth, and seek to make a case based on Truth. When that is clearly no longer the goal, then what’s the point of discussion? And that goes a long way toward explaining what has happened to “civil discourse” in post-Biblical AmeriKa, too.

Moses AGAIN warns those who would turn from obedience to the instruction of Yahuah of the consequences, and AGAIN says not to do what they did, and we, as a world even, are still doing: going after other, false, ‘gods’.

This teaching, ultimately, is all about “faith”. What does that really mean anyway?

And we see that when it comes to Authority. His, and those who have sought to replace Him.