Mishpatim: Preparing for the Presence
Transcript(from the video captions)
Let's pray. Bashayam, we bless and sanctify your name. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your ruach, your spirit that is present among us today. We thank you that you give us sound instruction that we can rely on you. That you are an anchor. You are our rock and we stand upon your your sapphire today. Your rock as you lead us forward. and we thank you for for your goodness and your grace and that you always have our our best interest in mind and I pray that you would just guide our hearts and minds today as one people in Yeshua's name. Well, Shabbat shalom everybody. It's great to to see you all today and to see all all the faces back and so grateful also Brookhem for healings that have been taking place and and coming through sickness and cold cold weather that's starting to warm up a little bit and everything else. So, it's a good thing. It's a good season. I want to introduce you to a story uh from the Talmud that we start out with today. And this is where uh the the sages asked a very dangerous question in the Talmud. There were Jews who understood the the the Malik in [clears throat]
Exodus chapter 23 in dangerously elevated terms as we looked at that scripture and they were called the minim which technically means heretics. Now, heretics gets a very bad rap, but as Messianic Jews were very familiar with it. And what it means is that these groups, these Jewish sectarians were were were going to the outer limits of understanding Hashem. And the sages warned that no one should debate these particular sectarians unless they are as skilled as Rav Edict. Rav Edict. And Rav Edict was a great debater and his name alone means that he stood firm and he could he could stand and argue with the best of them. And one day one of the minim came to Rav Edith and said, "And Moshe, he said to Moshe, he said, "Come up to Hashem." That's Exodus 24:1. But surely he should have said, "Come up to me." In other words, who's actually saying this? And Rob Edith answered without hesitation. It was Medatron, the Malik. Metatron as in the chief angel of God according to rabbitic interpretation, whose name is similar to that of the master. For it is written, "My name is in him." And you notice how the rabbis are going back and
forth using scripture as they always do. And the mean pressed further. If that is so, should we not worship him then? And Rav Edict responded by appealing to the very next verse. Do not rebel against him, which he reads to mean, do not exchange him, that is the Mollik, for Hashem. Do not exchange me for him. That's what he said. And the man objected again. If so, why does it say he will not pardon your transgression? As in the Mollik, the angel will not pardon your transgression. And Ravidic concluded with a startling claim. We hold the belief that Israel would not accept him even as a messenger. For it is written, Moshe said, "If your personal preference does not go with us, do not take us up from here." And he quotes Exodus 33. Now, why would the the sages engage in such a risky conversation? Why would they allow such a close breach with danger? We're talking about Hashem, monotheism. Hashem is one. And the answer is because the the Torah allows a holy tension. It allows a wrestling with a holy tension in place. And it leaves us right there in that holy tension to wrestle with it. How can
God place his name, meaning his authority, and a messenger who is not identical with him? Moreover, how does the one God draw near to a human people that are very capable of sin without actually consuming them or destroying them? For God is a holy fire. How? But this is not a later philosophical question. It's actually a Torah question. And the Torah does not answer it all at once. It leaves us in the balance. And that's what the rabbis are pointing out here. It leaves us in that holy tension. And we learn from this that God's power and presence are made perceivable not only through mediated miracles that we're going to see or spectacle but by a people formed by justice, compassion and dignity. And that is the mishpatim. We go up so high close to God. But yet he says, "I want you to embody my commandments, my mishpetim, my laws, my ordinances on the ground." And that's the tension of the Torah, the beauty of it. But it means that God chooses to make his presence recognizable through how his people live. That doesn't matter we that doesn't mean that these Mishva team enable us to build ladders to heaven.
has nothing to do with that. It has to do with embodying embodying and emulating Hashem on the earth and the laws of social justice and civil laws. So this week the Torah doesn't rush from from Sinai to glory. Doesn't rush us there. In fact, it pauses. Pause. silence. It descends into human life right with us. It turns immediately to these mishim civil and social justice. And the Torah opens with these quiet but decisive words.
Now these are the mishpetim the ordinances that you shall set before my people. God says, and he goes on to say, if if you keep these, you're going to be blessed. I'm going to bless you and I'm going to come close and because you're embodying me on the earth. And this is where it becomes incarnation not just long or all day long which study is good but Judaism is a a faith of doing of being actionable of taking our faith embodying it sometimes in sign and symbol but even more so right here in Mishpetimine. This is the heart of the Torah. And we could read this along with Leviticus 19, the holy code. And that's how we know how to keep God's commandments. That is lifetimes of of perfect perfecting, right? We we want to start now. And it's all about gradual progress. So that's the movement. These are the ordinances, God says. But these aren't ideas to admire. In fact, we could read through them and say, gee, so many laws. Of course, they all tie to the to the 10 words, but it's not theology to debate. It's a way of life placed before a people. This is how we we know who we are. This is how people can see who we are in the
face of the earth. Israel knows these realities in their bones. We know it. We know. We know what exploitation feels like because we were in Egypt. We know what it means to be treated like property because we are in Egypt. We know what it feels like to be abandoned, ignored, and sold because we know the story of Yoseph and because we were in Egypt. And then God does something astonishing. He takes our family story, the story of Yoseph, and reforms it into law, into Mishpatim. Think of it as the stories of your life as you learn and grow in wisdom. These almost become your own personal laws to follow that not going to do that again. Right? As we learn and we move forward. Yseph [snorts] sold as property to his brothers or by by his brothers. He becomes now limits on slavery. And this is indentured servitude, not cattle. No one may be reduced to an object. Power is now restrained. When we think about the restraining of power, we think about the judge who no matter what chooses to judge wisely and justly even though there's so much power in his hand. We think about the witness on the stand that will not weaponize
truth. We think about those that are going to take a stand. We think about the lender who no matter what will not exploit the poor and those that are in need to make excess interest off of them, but rather thinks about the dignity of these people. That's how power is restrained in Mishbatim. But going back to Yoseph, he was thrown into a pit, left there, and now in Mishbatim, that becomes a liability for neglect. You can't neglect like that anymore. If you know a life that has fallen and you do nothing about it, then the Torah says you are partially responsible for that life because you did nothing. When we have those opportunities, indifference is no longer moral neutral. That's the Torah. If one uncovers a pit or digs a pit and does not cover it, anytime we're talking about pit language, we're talking about something to Yoseph most likely. And an ox or a donkey falls in it. The owner of the pit must pay compensation. There's the mishbetim. Yoseph in scripture is metaphorically called an ox because he's a sign of strength and also a sign of fruitfulness. So when the Torah talks about an ox
falling into a pit, it's restraining a people who once walked away from their brother to say to them, "You are never to walk away from your brother or sister ever again. That's Mishbatim coming alive. Yeshua also used this when he said, "Which of you having a son or an ox or a donkey will not pull him out of a pit?" When they've fallen into a pit on Shabbat takes it to a whole another level, right? Because on Shabbat we have the 39 melot, the 39 laws of nonworking. But there are certain laws that are even going to be elevated over that. That's mishpetim, not being in indifference. The Torah makes this actionable responsibility as we proceed through life and and we have opportunities in front of us to help the needy. What was once ignored now we take action. We know because we have mishpatim. The Torah does not erase Israel's pain. Rather, it redeems it. It recasts it in a way that we can now keep Mishpetim and embody God on the earth. How different would the earth be if we embody God's mishpetim? That's how they will see Yeshua in me and in you through this
But again, this is not moralism. The Torah is talking about transformation, transformational, incarnational realities that can happen within us. And it's moving through a progression. It's moving through a progression here as we see Mishbatim to the Malik who's going to mediate God's presence to keep us from danger to eventually God's incarnational presence coming down and dwelling shakan shakina dwelling. That's what this is leading towards. It's heliologically leading us to what's going to happen when we have to be prepared for God's presence to come with us. That can be dangerous, but not if we're walking in mishpetimine. So the once oppressed are no longer oppressing. The once exploited are are trained not to exploit. Those who knew power now walk in mercy. Power restrained. And we are taught responsibility with compassion. God's rakamim on the earth. A gentile once asked Hell the Elder to teach him the whole Torah while standing on one foot. Now, how many of you I know our former rabbi was a was a gymnast and he could stand on one foot probably for days, [laughter] right? Not me, not very long. And hell, the elder
replied to him, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." This is the whole Torah. The rest of it is commentary. Go and learn. Beautiful response from H the Elder. Before God draws near to us or nearer, we must be reformed and transformed. At least start that process. Just start the process to know what is weighty in God's eyes. The weightiness is Mishbatim. This is it. This is the heart of of Judaism. This is the heart of Messianic Judaism. As we move forward, that doesn't change. We're just have now power within us to do all of this because the ruach is with us. God's power and presence are made perceivable not through not only we say not only through spectacle but through a people formed by justice, compassion and dignity. God is forming that in me and in you. The spectacle is great. The grand theophony is great. We want that. But we have to walk in God's justice, compassion, and mercy. And that brings us to to the mollik because the mollik is going to mediate nearness with God's mercy, protecting us when we might not we not be might be ready for it. We're going through spiritual formation right now in this
congregation. I sense it. I feel it. I feel it in my bones. I know we are. And God's presence is going to be with us. He is with us. Because the formation is real. God dares to draw nearer. But near nearness must be mediated carefully. And so what we see is that God does not yet dwell yet in the Torah portion. He's close. He's close, but he's sending. He's doing a shalak here. There it is. Lean. Behold, I am sending the Malik, the angel before you. Malik, an angel, a messenger before you. He's the mediator. The Mollik is real. He is commissioned by God. God places his name within him. This goes back to our opening debate for my name is in him. God puts his name in the malach. To obey him is to obey God. To resist him is to resist God. But this is not idolatry. This is mercy. This is God prepping us, preparing us for his full presence to come. At least as much as we can handle. Oh boy. Because the cavode is getting stronger. The weight, the glory. And the Torah does not resolve the tension theologically. It lets us stand in it and debate it. That's good. We don't have to have an answer for everything.
That's good. That's humility. But we know that God does not want to overwhelm us. He preserves the people where they are at. He preserves me and you where we are at. He's patient with us even as he continues to lead them forward. Again, there is a leading forward here as progression moving forward into the presence of God. I a mediated nearness to God. But that awakens a longing in us. There's a longing, a nearness. But we want to be we want God directly. We we want to be with him more and more intimately, more directly because the Mollik has limitations. He does not walk with them or us in our weaknesses. He does not bear their failures. He does not suffer alongside of them. and he does not restore covenant relationship. The Mollik is limited and that's when it becomes clear in a future Torah portion when the sin of the golden ha calf fractures the relationship. Moshe dares to give voice to that when he stands in the gap before the people based on what the people are starting to feel.
If your present does presence does not go with us, that's your direct presence does not go with us. We cannot go up from here. That was Moshe's argument to God as he recognized the limitations of the Malik can't fully identify with our humanity. But this is not a rejection of the Mollik. This is a rejection of the limit. It is the realization that God among us is what defines Israel and us here, right here, right now as a people. That's what defines us as a people because we are God's people. And that's why we have to embody God on the earth. We have to embody him. We have to know what it means to be under authority. That's a good thing. That's why we wear a kipa. No offense if you're not wearing one, but next week I expect it. I'm kidding. God with us. The mediation of the mollik preserves life, but he does not yet bring the intimacy that we so desire. And we need that nearness to God to know him. God's power and presence are still real with the Malik, but they are mediated. They are limited because a people is still being formed. There's formation going on for something more. And God is
working that out in me and you right now. Hashem is forming you for something more. where the circles that we travel in sometimes will start to feel smaller because we realize that that we are growing spiritually and that's a good thing. That's a good thing as long as we remain in humility with that. Humility is the key to all of this. Not to get puffed up. God's presence is there. He's here because God's power and his presence is made perceivable not only through mediated miracles and spectacle but through a a people formed by compassion, justice, and dignity. It's about dignity. And the question still remains, how can God draw near? Not only through law, not only through a messenger, a Mollik, but through shared covenantal life. How can God draw near through all of that? And the Torah answers, not with an idea, but with ontology, with a person, not a mollik. Messiah emerges out of that Torah shaped second temple world. That's where he emerges from that place. Not as a Malik, not as a replacement for the Torah, but as the one in whom the Torah has been leading all along. Because the Torah is leading us
somewhere. Even though that the teaching is always spatial as well, it's leading us Messiah does not replace mishpatim. He doesn't come so we don't have to do mishpetim. He embodies the mishpetim. He sets the example of what it looks like to embody God's ordinances on the earth. Where a mish team restrain harm through ordinary responsibility. The Messiah reveals through healing the world that we were meant to protect. He reveals a new a world where justice, compassion, and dignity rules. Gives us a a a bird's eye view of that. His miracles do not domesticate ordinary justice. They disclose its goal. That's where it's teological. The goal of what the Mishbatim point to that we should be walking in all along. Mishbetim train us in habituated, embodied and sometimes mundane covenant faithfulness. And the miracles performed by Messiah Yeshua are windows into that faithfulness, aiming toward God's reality on the earth. Where a mishmat team care for the vulnerable, Messiah takes it to another level. He moves toward the marginalized right to them every time. Where a Misha team confronts indifference, Messiah exposes the heart
behind it all. where Mishbah team regulate property and power. Messiah proclaims that wealth must never become another form of Egypt bondage where Mishbatim introduced a lifestyle free from bondage and oppression. Remember this is undoing Egypt. Mishpatim as we embody God on the earth is undoing bondage in Egypt. Messiah comes in in that framework and reorders our desire towards God and the care for others. So our desires now are reordered to please God and to walk in his ways. And Messiah embodies and emulates those ways for us very clearly, constantly by bringing it to a whole another level. What what Torah forms through Mishbatim as shared covenant responsibility, Messiah intensifies and consummates through faithful human life. And he's the one who shows us what a faithful human life looks like as he knows how to be under authority to Hashem, the father in heaven, but yet is with and part of Hashem himself. This is that tension, the holy tension, the divinity of Messiah here in full swing. What was what was once mediated in the Torah, what was once taught to internalize yet formed on the outside because it
comes mishpatim and we are action action actionizing it. We now embody it from within and Messiah enables that to happen. Like the Mollik, God places his name in Messiah. He speaks with delegated authority. He forgives sins just like the Mollik is able to forgive sins. But unlike the Malik, he restores covenant relationship. He enters into our suffering. And Paul names this truth from another angle when he says, "My power, God's power is made perfect in weakness. Because God's power is indeed made perfect in our weaknesses. This is what Mish Mishbatim is all about. It's going right towards the marginalized and the weak and vulnerable and those that are exploited, those that have to be lifted up or the animal that's fallen or the person especially that has fallen. This is Mishbatim. God's power is not revealed in domination, but where justice protects the vulnerable among us. That's where God is found. And weakness is now carried through Mishbatim. As we embody God's presence on the earth, it's not ignored. So we know that Messiah, he transcends angelic mediation. He is incarnational faithfulness.
He is Messiah Yeshua, the incarnation. So as we move to a close today, the Torah shows us what happens when formation makes encounter possible. That we must form spiritually and we must be transformed. God is patient. He's merciful. This is gradual progress. This is humility.
And it says in Shimote 24:10-11 Eloh. They saw the God of Israel. This was Moshe Aaron and his sons Nadav and Aiehu. They saw the God of Israel. They even saw the sapphire under his feet. I don't buy that's a metaphor. I believe they God allowed them to see him in a mystical vision or in a powerful theopony, a real encounter. Yet, it was limited. It was right after the covenant that God made with us. And we said three times, "We will do it. what you have said, oh Hashem, we will do it. And we we dined with Hashem that day. We had table fellowship with him. But then we did not remain. See, we still had to continue in the mishpatim. We still had to continue on as God is preparing us forum for the next Torah portion. We saw, we shared table fellowship, but yet we still long for just a little more. The Torah drew a careful boundary that day when it says this Moshe a nun and Moshe Moshe alone entered the cloud. Moshe was given rights to go up and make his aliyah his aliyah. But it was only Moshe. It was limited. There was clear boundary in place. The people had to still be formed. Spiritual formation.
Glory is revealed but access is restricted still. So the Torah then now leaves us on the threshold. Not yet dwelling with God. Not yet. Not yet, but ready. I'm ready. Am I doing? Am I moving in you? Am I seeing the opportunities that you're putting before me and walking in them? Am I being aware? What are my distractions? Am I hearing from you, oh God? Am I standing oct with community and hearing from you? Do I know how to take instruction? And the question becomes, where are you and me looking for God? Is it in spectacle? Is it in power? Is it in mediated miracles? Is it in what overwhelms and what's touchyfey? That can be good, too. >> Is that what we're looking for? It's all there. It's all true. Or Mishbatim says, "Is it in the faithful, constant, quiet, consistent doing of justice, compassion, and dignity?" Because that's where God meets us. His power is made perfect in weakness. And he wants us to embody him because the power of God is made perceivable not only through mediated miracles but by a people formed by justice, compassion and dignity. And when a community like us and all we do
and we will decide that we will live this way, God prepares to draw near. Let's pray. Shabbashim, we bless and sanctify your name. We thank you for your word. We thank you for spiritual formation and that you are working that out in us and and we just we give it all to you. I pray that you would just touch our hearts as one people now that you would touch down on us as you love to do and you give us opportunities and we would see that window of opportunity through Messiah Yeshua's work and miracles and example and then we would walk in that as your power is made perfect in weakness in Yeshua's name.