Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a study of parsha “Shalach Lekha” (Bemidbar/Numbers chapters 13 through 15), some of the related references from elsewhere in Scripture, and the undeniable parallels with a world which still literally “despises” Yahuah and His Word.
In the Erev Shabbat review, the story begins with the decision to “shalach” or send out men to ‘spy out’ the promised Land. When they return, we have recorded what Mark refers to as the “first recorded VOTE in history,” which two fellows named Joshua and Caleb are said to have lost. But the truth is that all who thought the ‘vote’ mattered were the real losers, and ultimately their “carcasses fell in the wilderness.”
But the story just begins there.
The Sabbath day message picks up the theme of those who Yah said “despised” Him, and includes a deeper look as well into the latter part of the parsha, including chapter 15, which Mark suggests might be titled, “Requiem for the Whore Church,” because it encapsulates in brief SO much of what the “Israel” that was later exiled (again, sent out or “shalach”-ed) for cause says is “done away with,” while He clearly says otherwise.
And notably today, we have our own version of evil men who not only bring a “bad report” of the Creator, but destroy literally every element of the things He said to keep, remember, and DO, “throughout your generations.”
The people of Berea were once praised for their willingness to “search out” a matter, and “see if these things are true.” Today, people “google” them instead, and one of the many lessons of this portion might be that the word has become a verb whose real meaning amounts now to “deliberately rebel” against them.
The combined link, which includes the revelant “know the times and seasons” update from the Erev Shabbat service, is here:
“Shalach Lekha: Spies, Demonocracy, and Gulag,
— OR —
So Close, and Yet SO Far!”
