22 July, 2000 19 Tammuz 5760
Focus Passage: (Numbers 28:1 - 29:40)
Celebrating G-d's Goodness
These chapters constitute a calendar of annual sacrificers and special religious celebrations, giving parallel information much like that which appears in passages such as Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23. Among those celebrations were the daily offering (28:3-8), the Sabbath offering (28:9-10), the monthly or new moon offering (28:11-15), the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Pesach) (28:16-25), the Feast of Weeks (28:26-31), the seventh month or Rosh Hashanah (29:1-6), the Day of Atonement (29:7-11), and the Feast of Tabernacles (29:12-38; cf. Lev. 23:33-36).
Although the offerings need not be discussed in detail, we can note they uniquely emphasized the remembrance of G-d's goodness through G-d's action in history. At times such remembrance focused on the redemptive experience out of Egypt. On other occasions persons remembered the wilderness, as in the Feast of Tabernacles. Or, again, they remembered the goodness of G-d through gifts of the land. But whatever the occasion, worship enabled Israel to remember the goodness of G-d in her history while reaffirming the reality of G-d's presence in both the present moments of worship and in life beyond the worship center. So worship recreated the past event of G-d in the present moment of worship while bringing to reality the power of G-d in the present moment of human experience. Before entering a new life in a new land, Israel affirmed a pattern for celebrating the joy of G-d's salvation.
So also in the present age, we enter into each day poised for worship. Shall we enter that realm of relationship to G-d and man, or will we take a detour around worship of G-d each day? Will we be aware of our own frailties? Or, will we concentrate on the frailty of others? Shall we concentrate only on our own physical betterment or shall we seek the enhancement of all of humanity? Shall we worship G-d by our deeds, or shall we worship mankind by our actions?
Shalom U'Vracha,
Thomas and Greta
