Shavuot: The Hidden Reward of Hesed
Transcript(from the video captions)
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we bless your name. We thank you so much for your word. That is sweet like honey to us. And like milk, Lord, it's it's good for our soul. We thank you for that. We thank you for this holiday, this great holiday of Shavuot. We just lift all of this up to you. We lift our our souls, our minds, our hearts, and that we pray invite you freely to flow in this place. In fact, we encourage and we ask for your presence to be with us today. Every in every moment, I pray in Yeshua's name. Well, Hag Sameach, everybody. And Shabbat Shalom, and so great to be here on this holiday that is a really amazing holiday. One of the three pilgrimage festivals, Sholosh Regalim, that in the the times of the temple, we would have made our journey up to the the temple to to in the in the shadow and the light of the temple and everything that would have been going on in those days. It's such a special time. And at last, here we are. So, we have 49 days of counting the Omer, and so we get to this point and it culminates right here on Shavuot. We are here and instead of arriving, it's a new
beginning. And that's the beauty of the Torah. But here we are at the top of Har Sinai, Shavuot, also known as Hag Hakatzir, the harvest festival, also known as as Yom Habikurim, the first fruit, when we would bring the twin loaves to Hashem, the the wheat loaves to him as the first fruit of our our harvest that started out with the with the first sickle of the barley, and then now turns into the the wheat and Hashem providing for all of us. And then according to custom, we read the book of Ruth on Shavuot. And this is a great time to experience this holiday. The sages also tell us that Shavuot is the day of King David's Yahrzeit. We celebrate his birth on this day according to tradition as well as the day that he passed. So, we remember him on this day, which is very fitting because it's about kings. It's about kings arising in Israel when we read the book of Ruth. But, there's still a problem. The problem is that the book of Ruth often seems like it's disconnected from the holiday. I mean, let's think about it. No fire and thunder. No shofar on the mountain. No overwhelming theophany.
No apparent touch from God in all everything going on. But, rather we have in the book of Ruth tragedy, deaths, grief, bitterness, what appears to be barrenness, and then a poor Moabite gleaning in the field during the barley and wheat season. Aha, the season. That's where it locks in. During the season of Shavuot when covenant hesed quietly begins to unfold. When we think about hesed, loving kindness, it's not just convenient kindness. It is deep and covenantal and it flows from heaven. And this moves heaven. And then we begin to realize that Shavuot actually belongs right here. In fact, it probably gives us the blueprint and the meaning of what Shavuot is all about. Right here. Revelation. Revelation at Sinai, that's when God speaks. Restoration. That's when the broken return to come. Rectification. That's when what was fractured is now repaired. Roots. That's covenant hesed embodied. And then finally, the Ruach. That's covenant hesed carried forward. So, we have the five Rs today that we think about. Revelation. Restoration. Rectification. Root and Ruach. And I could keep going on, revival. I
could keep going, but those are the ones that I want you to keep in mind today. At Sinai, we trembled before God and we declared, "All that Hashem has spoken, we will do." Centuries later, standing in Yerushalayim, Jewish people from all regions hearing Kefa preach the Besorah. And they said, "Brothers, what shall we do?" We will hear, we will do. Brothers, what shall we do? That's the question Shavuot asks us today. And then there's Ruth, a grieving widow standing at the crossroads of uncertainty. Faced with a choice between self-preservation and legacy restoration. And I ask you today, what crossroads are you standing at or have you stood at? Because self-preservation is wise, it's good. We want to take care of ourselves and our families and secure our future, but not when it's overdone. Because Ruth asked a different question about raising up the name of one in Israel. A name that just happens to be greater than we might anticipate. And it reminds us of why every nefesh, every soul matters so much to God. Cuz he may have his eyes on a particular one or two or three, but all. All. So, we ask those questions.
And on Shavuot, we begin to see all how God often hides future redemption inside covenant hesed. And our Torah reading starts out right here. In Devarim 16:10 and 11. I'm okay. I'll just keep going with it. I'll just try to stand steady. U'vasita chag Shavuot l'Adonai Elohecha. Then you shall keep the feast of Shavuot to Adonai your God. Missat nidvat yad'cha. With a measure of free will. There's that that toda offering. That free will offering from your hands. And this is key here. I I share titankatashare. Y'ever cut an eye heka. Which you will give according to how God blesses you. We all have different measures of blessing.
V'simcha lifnei Adonai Elohecha. So, you'll rejoice before God. And there's sometimes the missing component that we may forget. That on this shulosh regalim, this particular holiday, God says rejoice in the Lord in his strength. To rejoice. I know it's not something we can just manufacture. Right? Did you have your coffee this morning? Rejoice. That's what we're supposed to do. In the place where God chooses to make his name dwell. In those days, it would be Yerushalayim, right at the temple. Not up in Samaria. No, that's the wrong place. It was actually right in Yerushalayim today, right here at Sha'arei Shalom. That's where God is making his name dwell. Right here, right now. And it says, your son and your daughter. In those days, slave and maid. The Levite, the the ger, the outsider, the orphan, and the widow in your midst. Wow. Everybody is included in this. Not just the guys at the top. Everybody. And then we have a story about a woman who was poor. And she's widowed. And she's gleaning in the field. This ties to Shavuot. This is covenant life embodied in community and why community is so
important for us. It's not just about private spirituality. It's about communal transformation. And will inform your private time. The Torah descends into families, relationships, responsibility, and community, the Torah tells us. But when the Torah shines a light into our true nature, sometimes it becomes uncomfortable. Human beings have a natural curve inward upon themselves. Protect yourself. Secure your future. Secure your inheritance. Minimize sacrifice. This is not really your true intent, but this is what happens when when Torah shines a light into us. Those things that were that are hidden within us are revealed of who we are and how and why we need God and we need each other. And this is the place where covenant has said begins to take root in this awareness of of who God is and and who who I am and who my community is and and why we have that responsibility of loyalty to God and our families and to each other. Starts to take foot. Rabbi Hanina notes that Ruth's kindness involved major sacrifice, leaving behind what was familiar. Who else did that? Name one person who left behind what was
familiar. Abraham, exactly. Relinquishing security, whatever that was for her, and then raising up the name of the deceased in Israel. Sometimes in our culture we may we may minimize or under weigh that but what it means to to lift up the legacy of somebody else. But this is big to God. This is big stuff to him. Because we don't know what he's planning, what he's working on, and how who he's working through. We can't see out that far into the future. Only God can. But, through him, perhaps so can you. In Midrash Ruth Rabbah, we have Rabbi Ze'ira says that Sefer Ruth he's questioning, you know, what's the what's the the point of this book? It's not about too much taharah. It's not about the clean and unclean, even though it talks about death. But, rather it's zakhar tov legomel hasadim, the great reward given to those who perform loving-kindness. This is covenant hesed. Loving-kindness, deeply sacrificial. This is what moves mountains in God's world. Not sentimental kindness, not convenient, being nice. Well, that that's good. I want you to be be nice. Be convenient, yeah. But, this is the real stuff.
It's not only when it benefits us, but it does benefit us. Because God's watching. It involves costly decisions that we have to make. The sages call it g'milut hasadim, acts of covenant kindness. Ruth's story embodies what Torah looks like when it becomes literally embodied through covenant faithfulness. And that's what happens we we see emerging through these acts of hesed, the hidden redemptive plans of God begin to emerge forward. That's what we see. But yet, the book of Ruth opens up in darkness during the days of the the Shofetim, the judges, famine. A character named Elimelech arises. And his wife, No- Naomi. They leave Bethlehem, the house of bread, to go find bread? Well, yeah, to find survival during a time of scarcity. Where food is scarce. And they enter in into a a kind of self-imposed exile. And then tragedy strikes. Elimelech dies. Then the sons of Elimelech and Naomi, Mahlon and Chilion, die. Naomi's entire world is shattered. Her name, which means pleasant, now turns bitter. No husband, no sons, no visible future. Apparently barren, everything is lost. She says, "Call me Mara, bitterness."
And quietly, underneath this story, we hear an echo of another story in the Torah. Yaakov, Jacob. Jacob was forced into exile under threat of the hand of his brother Esau after a deception. He's walking into uncertainty. He's carrying covenant blessings and promises with him that he can't see out into the future. It's precisely right there in that place of uncertainty that Hashem comes to him in a dream of the vision of the ladder. Behold, he says, God says to him on the ladder, "I am with you and I will watch over you wherever you go." Asher Teylech, "Wherever you go, I will watch over you wherever you go." Echoes of Ruth. "Wherever you go, Naomi, I will go." Apparently, Ruth was either reading or hearing Torah somehow. And quietly, that promise hangs over the entire story of Ruth. Even in exile, even in loss, when redemption cannot be seen, Jacob was promised that kings would come from his loins, that nations would arise and be blessed through him. But at that time, those promises felt very distant. And there are times in your lives, in our lives, when we just can't see over the horizon
and certain promises that we know God has promised us, we know they are there, but we can't seem to feel them or touch them. They seem distant. But God is counting on you and me for acts of covenant chesed. G'milut Hasadim. This is important. This is He's counting on us for that. And so, we have that in the story. And not only that, but Rachel, his wife, dies near Beit Lechem, Bethlehem. And at that point, Bethlehem becomes the place of grief and future redemption. Everyone in the story of Ruth must make a choice. Naomi in her grief tries to release her daughters-in-law because she feels that she doesn't have anything more to offer them. She sees no future for them anymore. No reason for them to continue to be attached to her. The time of her fruitfulness seems to have expired. Does that sound familiar? Well, yes, this echoes in Torah. The daughters Ruth and Orpah, they they cry out in anguish towards God and towards Naomi. Orpah returns returns home reasonably, understandably, devastated. Later in the story, we see an unnamed redeemer decides "I can't redeem it. It is too costly. It will ruin my inheritance."
Self-preservation can be reasonable. Protect your future, we're told. Yeah. Minimize your losses. That's important wisdom. But the Torah requires more. It's incumbent upon us not only how do I protect myself, or how can I be saved? Not only that, but rather what does faithfulness require of me now? And we arrive here at the very center of the story. This is it. Naomi appears empty. No husband, no sons, no visible future, no visible blessing at all. And from an ancient worldly perspective Naomi appears to be a dead end. And yet in that place Ruth does something unusual. She clings to her apparent emptiness. And perhaps this is one of the most deepest mysteries in all of the Torah and in the book of Ruth. God often hides future redemption in sacrificial acts of covenant hesed. Now listen carefully to this. Ruth says to her for wherever you go I will go. A share a share tale key alekh. Wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. And suddenly Beresheet Genesis 28 comes alive again right here. When God said to Jacob a share tale alekh. I will go wherever you go. I'll be with
you wherever you go Jacob. And Ruth says a share tale key alekh. Wherever you go, I will go. She's attaching herself to God through Ruth. Through a Jewish woman. We have it right here. Jacob in exile, God promised covenant accompaniment. That he would be with him wherever he goes. But ra- rather now, generations later, Ruth is going to attach herself. She's going to embody the same covenant accompaniment towards Naomi, towards the Jewish people. And we're starting to see what this looks like when the nations come into Israel. Right here. That Yeshua, the Jewish people, are inseparable. Inseparable. But here's the Hebrew word for today. Devequt. Later Jewish mystical tradition taught that devequt was the highest form of spirituality because it meant that you were stuck to God. You were cleaving to him. Attachment. Just as Naomi was attaching herself to Ruth, and Ruth was attaching herself to Naomi. Moshe ben Nachman, Nachmanides, taught that this particular attachment is not merely in private through covenant chesed. The covenant itself is embodied in this, expressed through loyalty, sacrifice,
presence, being there for people. Being there. Sticking to them like glue, no matter what. And chesed. That's what devequt is. Sometimes we overweigh one or the other, but this is where it's at. Ruth has absolutely no idea what God is preparing. She doesn't know that David Melech Israel, King David is three generations away. She doesn't know that kings are coming. She doesn't know that Mashiach, Messiah, is coming. She simply clings faithfully to Naomi. And through this attachment, we see a hidden redemption quietly emerging in the story of Ruth giving Shavuot a fuller meaning of what this is all about. We see it begin to emerge. A kinsman redeemer arises in Israel. He's a righteous man, Boaz. He doesn't ask, "How do I protect myself?" He asks, "How can I preserve the name and the legacy of another? How can I do that?" He's willing to sacrifice self-interest for covenant faithfulness. This is important. There are times that God will call on you to do that, to sacrifice your self-interest for what God is going to do through you and through your future generations. And it's through this
act of hesed, we can call it a levirate levirates or a yibbum style hesed that arises in raising up the name of the deceased in Israel that God had his hand on, his his eye on. Inheritance is restored. There's a restoration. A dead family line, Elimelech and Mahlon lives again through this. We have resurrection appearing in the story. Naomi receives life again. She can almost be a wet nurse now, at least by from a grandmother standpoint. She can do great things and quietly Elimelech arises in history. Right here. Through this act of res- resurrection shaped redemption we have in the story. But it goes even further than that. Moab begins to be healed. That's goes back to a lot to Lot to Lot's line and his two daughters. Ruth Ruth becomes the rectification of Moab through covenant hesed. She begins to repair that. And the Haftarah emerges right here. Habakkuk which also has a resonance meaning of clinging. The prophet says this. Through the Though the fig does not bud nor yield beyond the vines, I will rejoice. There's the word for Shavuot. I will rejoice, simcha. I will rejoice in Adonai.
Even when it appears dead, even when this line feels barren, no matter what I'm going through in the valleys of the shadow of death, God will arise among us. I have to remember that. Even when there's no visible fruit, even when there's no apparent future that I can see, even when there's no visible blessing just yet. This is where God emerges. Habakkuk name associated with the clinging but Ruth actually lives what Habakkuk is saying even before he speaks it. And Ruth is not just entering into a family. She's entering into the heart of Israel's covenant story. This is why me and you, this is why we are here because of her act of hesed. Yeah, God can make redemption arise from another place. But there's always a cost. This is where God brings it right here. And that Ruth doesn't go around the Jewish people. She goes right through them to God. She appears emptied and bitter Naomi. But rather God is arising and bringing life through her to bring a future for Israel. And this is where the promises to Abraham and Jacob now begin to ring in our ears. Right here, nations will be blessed. Kings will emerge from your loins. The
Messiah will arise inevitably in Israel and covenant hesed is extended outward and that's the outpouring of the Ruach Hakodesh. For the covenant hesed arises. But it's often through what we would say ordinary or in our Western world extraordinary acts of gemilut hasadim is where the hidden purposes of God arise through these acts of love and emerge. This is the place. This is what carries future redemption beyond what our eyes can see. So, Shavuot invites us into this story. And again, with an ancient question. The question is, "What will we do now?" With this wisdom, with this understanding. On Sinai, we said, "We will do. We will hear and we will do." That was how we answered that. Abraham Avinu left everything to follow God. Yaakov, despite his errors, still left everything to follow God. Ruth left everything to join herself to the Jewish people and follow God. And in Ma'aseh Shlichim, when we get to the book of Acts, Kefa proclaims the good news, the besorah, right here. And the crowd asked the same question, "Brothers, what shall we do? What shall we do?" The same question that we asked on Sinai.
"What shall we do?" And they were cut to the heart. And then, the the Ruach fell on them. What appeared defeated was actually redemption unfolding even in the book of Acts. The same pattern that we see in Ruth unfolds in Ma'aseh Shlichim on Shavuot. Apparent loss, Messiah crucified, we have his resurrection. And then we have his sending of the Ruach. Hidden providence in the story. Covenant Chesed because God said that he would raise up the son of David, the son of God for us. The Messiah. And future redemption unfolding. Finally unveiled just as we see in the book of Ruth, just as it was then in the book of Acts. And we have false Lakim, apostles that left everything to follow him. That stayed faithful to each other. So, as we think about this today, these acts of covenant Chesed, the question becomes what will we choose to preserve? And it's not just one thing. But what will we choose to preserve and will we live according to that and remember that? That God is counting on us to make sound decisions. Many walk away when covenant Chesed becomes too costly. It's understandable. Orpah walked away.
It happens. The first kinsman redeemer that was offered to redeem Ruth and Naomi in that land walked away. He was unnamed, by the way. But it's because of this uncertainty God will will test and will give us opportunities to make decisions that will affect our future and the future of our people. But we have to remember that Ruth could not see David he was right around the corner. Three generations. And Boaz couldn't see kings that were going to arise in Israel. And Naomi couldn't see a restoration. And this really is emunah, faith. And I ask you today as I ask myself, what is God asking you to restore? Is it a Is Is it a family lineage? Is it Is it ancestors that maybe didn't walk in the kind of faith that he's requiring you to walk in? That salvation is in your hands today. What is he asking you? A relationship. A marriage.
A community. A legacy. All of these are really important that God could be asking you to redeem through your acts of covenant hesed which is going to require sacrifice. Many of us come from fractured families and we are redeeming that. We're restoring that. Wounded relationships. Hurt. Past pain. God sees that. We must come alongside of that. That's covenant hesed. But it's not just about what has happened in the past, it's about the decisions that we will make right now and going forward. That's what God is asking. Will we remain attached to Vak? When covenant becomes really costly? That's the question. Will we faithfully cling like roots and not try to go around the bend, but right through where he's telling showing us the road through? Will we participate in God's redemptive purposes for Israel and for the nations as it is unfolding now? Well, that requires covenant Hesed, Gamlut Hasadim. And perhaps this is the mystery of Shavuot that we hear and see today that God often hides redemption inside sacrificial acts of covenant Hesed. And I'll leave that right there. Let's pray. Avinu Shebashamayim, we bless and
sanctify your name. We thank you for this day of rejoicing that this is the day that you have made and we will rejoice in it. Please prepare our hearts now and our minds now to give us revelation. Soften us with the Ruach that we might make wise choices going forward. And we will see we will see it all someday when we are with you. We thank you for that. We need it. Our families need it. We need it. Our movement needs it. Revive us, God. And we rejoice in you in Yeshua's name. Shabbat Shalom.