Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha Beha-alotkha (Numbers 8:1 through all of chapter 12).
The Erev Shabbat reading and outline of the parsha begins with ‘when you light the lamps’ of the menora, and then the silver trumpets, and how the camp of multiple millions — when He moves them on — is to head up, by their tribes, and move out. But it’s the latter part of the portion that contains SO much drama, and again, so much that really should resonate with us today.
In the Sabbath Day teaching, Mark basically begins there, but essentially with a break at the end of chapter ten — set off by one of the most famous sets of “jots and tiddles” in the Hebrew Torah, the “inverted nuns,” that has even been called the “Book Never Written.” But the words, and the implications, resonate literally millenia later!
Human nature certainly hasn’t changed. And neither, arguably, has our frustration with those who seem to choose death, rather than life. We can understand the frustration that drove Moses to almost the breaking point with a people who simply seem to be unteachable.
But, as we stand on the brink of what is probably the most deadly, most treacherous, most exciting, and perhaps even most important in all of human history, there is a tremendous message of HOPE here as well!
“Beha-alotkha: You Want MEAT? I’ll GIVE you meat! – or – Human Nature and Hope”
The combined two-part podcast is here:
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