Vayakhel Pekudei: The Soul of Creation

0:00Let's prayash. We bless and sanctify your name. We thank you for your presence today. We thank you for Shabbat. We thank you that you love us and you take care of us and you show us the way. And I pray that you would meet us where we are at as a community and as individuals. We lift your name up today. We thank you so much for the insights that you give us in Yeshua's name. >> Well, Shabbat shalom everybody >> and welcome. And again, welcome to those that are online and and so good to see your faces today as it is every week. And I'm excited about Peso. I hope I hope you're excited about it. There's going to be a lot of people there. So, show up early. Show up on time. And I'm excited about it. It's a great season as we are entering encroaching on Peso. But today, I want to begin with a simple observation. Shabbat feels different. Any Shabbat, the air feels different. The pace slows down and something inside of us settles. But now, let me ask you a question. How many of you agree and realize that Shabbat feels decisively different from all of the other weekdays? Raise your hand. Pretty good. That's That's a pretty good

1:54crowd. That's pretty. And especially those of us that have been doing it a little while, right? Do you anticipate it? Do you prepare for it? Do you prepare as if the Lord himself is coming to meet you and dine with you? What would that look like if we prepared that way? Have you ever stopped to wonder why it feels different? Well, the sages answered this with a story. Before creation, time was eternal and undivided. But when God began creating the world of space, he divided time into days so that he could dwell with creation. And each day had a companion. Pairs, night and day, sun and moon, sea and dry land, male and female. God created relationships on all days except for one. And what day was that? >> Shabbat. Shabbat, right?

3:33God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. Yet Shabbat became very lonely. And Shabbat said to Hashem, according to the sages, everything you created has a partner, but I am left alone. and the Holy One of Israel, he said, "The community of Israel will be your companion." Now that word sanctify in Hebrew is kadouch when we make kadesh. Kadouch and kusheen is the word for a Jewish marriage. Mauish. Some say it like that. So when now we begin to see what Shabbat is all about. To sanctify something is not just to set it apart. It's to enter into relationship with it. Jewish theologian and philosopher Abraham Joshua Hesshel famously called it a palace in time. That's why it feels different. It's very real. So we've come out of the golden calf and the people now are given another chance. Moshe had the opportunity to go up to Hashem and restore the divine presence through a tacon, a repair. But our parha this week does not begin with a building project, although it spans most of the chapters. It actually begins with a reset starting with the whole the whole community to reestablish relationship

5:38Moshe adel as we start out in our Torah portion today in Exodus chapter 35. Then Moshe assembled the entire congregation of Ben Israel and said to them, "Om, these are the words which Adonai has commanded you to do. For six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day will be holy for you. It is a Shabbat of Shabbat Shabbatone, a complete rest before the sanctuary can be built in space. We are reminded of kusheen, our marriage with God. Everything is about that. Shabbat is not merely a work prohibition. Don't do this, don't do that, don't do this, don't do that. It's not about being obsessive, compulsive about don't do this and don't do that. Although we need the halaka, the Jewish law, it's about relationship. It's relational. It's about preparation for meeting with the Lord. It's a sign of our everlasting relationship. U Israel he le ever everlasting [clears throat] a sign between me and you. God says because Adonai for in six days Adonai made the heavens and earth but on the seventh day he ceased from work and the word is nephesh he was refreshed by nephesh. Now the word for vayesh

7:41is nephesh soul. It comes from that root the soul. So it is if God is saying soul breath life force this is what Shabbat is all about. It's bringing refreshing spiritual power within our souls to arise in him. We need that reset. We need the covenantal connection with our God because we're coming out of a work week where the world sometimes has our hands, but in reality, we belong to someone else. It's as if the Torah is saying that when God rested, the world itself breathed again cuz Hashem does he really need to rest? No. It's a metaphor. The world can breathe again. Shabbat is the soul of creation. But we have to qualify this truth because I don't want anybody including myself to misunderstand. It's not an ontological claim that the day itself possesses a metaphysical substance. No, it's it's relational language relationship. It describes the relationship between God, humanity, and sacred time, a palace in time. When Shabbat arrives, creation remembers how to breathe again. We can breathe. We can breathe in our creator who created us. It reminds us of that. Humanity remembers who they are in

9:33relationship to the creator and doesn't flip it upside down. Who am I? And who is God? And how and what is my relationship to him? In this, the Jewish people are a harbinger or a first fruit of this eternal reality. And the messianic community bears witness not only to creation but to redemption. That is our place. We're taking that next step. Shabbat points back to creation, but it also points forward to the redemption. And in the season of Pesak, we're thinking about the season of freedom and redemption. But we have to know our place and the relationship we have with God. And our preparation is everything. The presence of God draws near to us when we understand our place and we prepare for it. In his classic book on the Sabbath, one of my favorites of all time and probably some of you as well, Abraham Joshua Hesshel writes something extraordinary. He says that Judaism itself introduced something very unique into the history of let's just call it religion because ancient religions had sacred places. They had temples, they had mountains, they had shrines. But Israel represented sacred time.

11:12This was our initial contribution to the world to remind the world of sacred time to not collapse space into time. And on the Shabbat, God does three things. He rests, he blesses, and he sanctifies. Those are are three things that we sing about and we we do on Shabbat. We we focus on it, the rest, the blessing and the sanctification. And at that moment, nothing else in space had been sanctified yet. When God created the heavens and the earth, nothing else in space had been blessed [clears throat] in the beginning until the seventh day. And in fact, no mountain was blessed yet. No temple was blessed yet. No city was blessed yet. So the first act of sanctific sanctification in the Bible is not a place or a thing, but rather time. Shabbat marks a point in time. Time itself is blessed. But eventually, as we see in our Torah portion developing, Israel consecrated time by sanctifying a portable building in space. but only after Hashem provided the blueprint for it on the mountain in time. So throughout the ages, Jews were known for keeping Shabbat. But even more so, we could say that Shabbat kept the Jews

13:12because that's what marriage mage is all about. We keep each other, right? keep each other in sacred dimension and covenant together. Hesshel writes this time was sanctified by God. Space was consecrated by Moshe. Important distinction. God gave the blueprint. You can see the the creation language in the parha tying the building of the Mishkan to creation. Shabbat. Shabbat becomes a temple in time. The Mishk Mishan becomes a sanctuary in space. We don't want to collapse those together. Hesshel reminds us that Shabbat is not an interlude. It is a sign of our sanctuary in time. Right here in spirit and truth is where Hashem meets us. Where the Lord of Shabbat shows up and refreshes us. That's why the air is different. That's why it feels different. God shows up. Yet our flesh draws us away to the things of space. It's constantly drawing us away. What are we thinking about? Thinking about your garden? Thinking about how much work you have to do? It draws us away. After the sanctification of the seventh day, humanity moved from temptation to toil, from blessing to a curse upon the ground. And from that moment

15:00forward, human life will be marked by endless striving. This is a form of bondage. To time itself collapses into toiling in space. the things we can measure, the things that we can produce, the money we can make, and we start to ingest competing ideas. Money makes the world go around. Oh, does it really? You ever heard that one before? Does it really? Free enterprise competes for our our time. But the spirit within us that God has implanted, the souls within us that belong to God soar on eagle's wings toward eternity. And that we have to realize and recognize what's going on in in us on Shabbat where God is is working on us if we allow him to because we're in a palace in time. God has planted within us, every one of us, a seed of his kingdom that can be nourished. It can be touched. It can be blessed. It can be watered. A longing for something that the world, no matter how much it has in space, cannot satisfy. That's what we have. We have that more valuable than gold by far. We spend much of our lives trying to manage time. Hveting about how time is getting away from us. Really? I didn't know you could catch

16:47time. If anybody can catch time, let's talk after the service. I want to talk to you. That can make a lot of money. But our minds move naturally from the past to the future. But really, all we have is a sacred moment in time right now. Right now, to look up and to say, "God, yes, this is my time with you, and I'm going to move in that moment." Anxiety about the future only cripples us and brings us further into bondage to time. But inevitably we look back at our lives anyway and when we do we think about what matters most. Is it the wedding day or the wedding venue? Which one is it? Is it the graduation itself or is it the prestigious university? Is it the house we lived in? Or is it the moments that we had in that home together in community in familial life? Shabbat reminds us that we serve an invisible God, but yet our invisible God meets us in those sacred moments in time. He's a God who meets us in time. And that is why Shabbat is the soul of creation. Repeat that. Shabbat is the soul of creation. It's good. Breathe that in. That's good air. That's blessed air. That's sanctified.

18:44That's going to bring breathe spiritual life into you as you receive the ruaka kodesh. We think about society is suffocating by endless striving which ultimately leads to spiritual death if we don't turn to God. But yet Shabbat resuscitates the world. It revives the world. And we have that testimony and that witness to [snorts] the world. But it has to start with our preparation in our life that what is Shabbat all about. And now we start to begin to understand the beginning of the para when it's talking about Shabbat with this negative commandment. Ao malaca you whoever does any work will die so harsh whoever does any work will die let's understand this allegorically because I believe this is also what it's saying the death of relationships the death of family strength the death of spiritual relationship with God. If we continue to strive endlessly and don't pay attention to the rest that we need in our creator. This is the architecture of our faith. It all starts with that. And then this one. Do not kindle a fire in any of your dwellings on Yom Shabbat. What? Anybody lit a flame today?

20:51Hope not. Let's think about this allegorically again. Shabbat is not a day for anger. Shabbat is not a day for strife. It's not a day for argument. It's not a day for agitation. That's what lights a fire on Shabbat. That's your fire. Instead of complaint, delight. Instead of righteous indignation, we have restoration. And that takes us to this story. Listen to this story. In Luke chapter 13, starting in verse 10, Yeshua was teaching in one of the synagogues on Yom Shabbat. And behold, there was a woman there with a disabling spirit for 18 years, bent over and unable to stand up straight. When Yeshua saw her, he called out to her and said,"Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." Five words in the Greek, not some elaborate formula, that six hours of deliverance prayer. This was five words in the Greek. Woman, you are set free from your infirmity. Just like that. Not magic, authority, power. And then he laid hands on her and instantly she stood up straight. See the difference from being bent to straight up and began praising God. Brook Hashem, Brook Hashem. But the synagogue leader became

23:01indignant, righteous indignation that Yeshua had healed on a Shabbat and started telling the crowd this. There are six days in which work should be done. So come to be healed on those and not Yam Shabbat. Oh, really? And the Lord answered him, "Hypocrites, if you untie an ox or a donkey on Shabbat and lead it to water to drink, how much more should this daughter of Abraham, bound by Satan for 18 years, be loosed from this bond on Shabbat." Notice there the call of a the light to the heavy that we're going from being tied up to loosed. That's Pesak language, folks. On Shabbat, we have the Lord of Shabbat talking about a higher law called Paku Khanesh, the saving of a life. 18 years is a long time. Who wouldn't who would want to be like that for one minute? God was ready to heal. So on Shabbat, we learned to speak a different language. Instead of saying, "God, I need healing." We say, "God, I trust that healing is coming. It is coming. I trust it. I know you love to heal. I trust it." Instead of saying, "I am trapped in worry." We say, "Today, I rest in the presence of the one who holds my future in his hand."

24:57>> That should calm your anxiety just like that. just knowing and walking in that. On Shabbat, we learn to turn from anxiety to trust and the one who holds our world in his hand. Because Shabbat is the soul of the world and he desires to breathe life and healing and blessing and sanctification into our lives. Six days we carry the burdens of the world, but when Shabbat comes, the burden lifts. It lifts out of that. That was the perfect appropriate time for that woman to be healed. Jewish woman, but yet you are all sons and daughters of Abraham in the faith of Yeshua. On this day, we remember that our lives are held by God alone. Alone, not by bondage. Because the world does claim to have our hands, but our souls, they belong to Messiah, Messiah. Because Shabbat is the soul of the world, we are invited to step away from transactional living, where life is measured by productivity and return to our rest in God. Where we can untie technological captivity. Untie it. rest from the endless notifications, from the constant urgency, from the illusion that everything depends on us and that there's just not

26:55enough time, so I have to get this done. Shabbat reminds us that we are eternal beings. God breathed his life force into us and that is ignited in the power of Yeshua when he breathes the ruach kesh on us. We are Messiah's children, sons and daughters of Abraham. We can rejoice in that every day and especially on Shabbat. And on air of Shabbat, it is customary to invite Shabbat as a bride adorned for her husband. Notice the metaphor know.

27:57Come, my beloved, to meet the bride. Let us welcome the presence of Shabbat. Not ontological, not metaphysical substance. Get that out of your head. It's a metaphor, a relational metaphor reminding us of our mage, our relationship with God. Later we sing may Beth Leheim through the son of Isai that's the son of Jesse from Blehem draw near to my soul and redeem my soul. Come draw near redeem my soul. that language. The son of Ishi is the Messiah, the Messiah. That's the Messiah coming. Come, draw near, redeem. And we are reminded of Matthew 11 28. Yeshua says, "Come to me. Come, come, come all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest and you will find rest for your souls. Yeshua says, "Come, draw near and find rest for your souls." There the Messiah of Israel, Yeshua is pointing forward to creation. But Ladi and Yeshua is also pointing towards our redemption. And that is what we represent in our preparation and experience of Shabbat. But Shabbat itself is an invitation. It's an invitation from the Lord of Shabbat to let our souls breathe eternal life. Shabbat is the soul of the world that

30:01speaks of eternity. It speaks in and points to the messianic age that we are now walking in. So I say to you, make Shabbat your delight. Let's pray. Vita Shabbash, we bless your name. We sanctify it in the heights of heaven and right here. We thank you so much for your true word that comes down from heaven to us. True bread from heaven to give us insight to adjust us accordingly to see and know and feel and experience how much you love us with a love that we cannot contain. So, how much more should we respond to you in Yeshua's name? And everybody says, >> "Shabbat shalom.