How Goodly Are Your Tents, O Jacob, Your Tabernacles, O Israel
Torah, Mitzvot and Messianic Judaism as a Way of Life

by Rabbi Stuart Dauermann

 

Living a Jewish life is far from boring.  In fact, it is a source of never-ending delight and frequent surprises.

Here is one surprise as an example: it has probably never occurred to any of us, nor to most of the people we will meet, that the Jewish morning service, Shacharit, begins with the words of a pagan prophet, Balaam.  It is his words, recording in Torah, which are enshrined at the beginning of our daily service: "Ma tovu oholecha Ya'akov, mishkenotecha Yisrael—How goodly are your tents or Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel."  Since our service begins there, in this message, I will begin there as well.

  Numbers 22:2-25:9 - Micah 5:6-6:8 - Mark 15:1-15

This week's edition of The Set Table contains:

Questions and Commentary on Parashat Balaq
Chayyei Yeshua - A Devotional Commentary on the Besora Reading
In Summary
Looking Ahead

Three Children of Amram, Two Strange Cows, and a Rock with a Perpetual Living Stream

by (c) Rabbi Paul L. Saal
Congregation Shuvah Yisrael, Simsbury, CT

This week's parsha is among the most enigmatic in all of Torah.  While it gives closure to the lives of Moses siblings, it opens three new mysteries in the fabric of Israel's, story, a peculiar ordinance, an odd deliverance, and a strange brand of justice.  Though I won't discuss them in this order, the following mnemonic title, "Three Children of Amram, Two Strange Cows, and a Rock with a Perpetual Living Stream" should help with the process of remembering the odd thematic happenings in parsha Chukat.

 

  Numbers 19:1-22:1 - Judges 11:1-33 - Mark 14:53-72

This week's edition of The Set Table contains:

Questions and Commentary on Parashat Qorach
Chayyei Yeshua - A Devotional Commentary on the Besora Reading
In Summary
Looking Ahead

by Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, PhD

Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue Beverly Hills, CA

In the previous parasha, Hashem decreed that the entire generation which had provoked him repeatedly and finally with their rebellion at Kadesh Barnea would not enter the Land of Promise.  It seems the Torah is therefore at pains to help us understand that this disbarring from the Land of Promise is justified.  After all, some might say that Hashem was failing to keep his promise.  Instead of bringing the people he redeemed from Egypt into the Promised Land, he is letting them die in the wilderness.  This is precisely the line of argument Moses used in last week's parsha" [Num 14:11-16].  Moses said that if the people perished in the wilderness, people would say that he had been unable to complete the task of bringing into the Promised Land the people he had brought out of Egypt.  And we saw last week how excluding this generation from inheriting the Promised Land was justified by the Torah in view of the people's repeated rebellion including the incident of the spies on the very edge of going into the Land.

 Numbers 16:1-18:32, 28:9-15 - Isaiah 66:1-24 - Mark 14:32-50

This week's edition of The Set Table contains:

Questions and Commentary on Parashat Qorach
Chayyei Yeshua - A Devotional Commentary on the Besora Reading
In Summary
Looking Ahead

© Rabbi Paul L. Saal

In the spring of 2002 I went to an art exhibit that was featuring a grouping of pictures painted by a good friend who was beginning the process of leaving the safety of a career as a commercial artist and pursuing an art form that was uniquely his own. The collection was entitled quite simply, "Monsters". I was not prepared for the transition in his work. My friend's commercial work had always been clean, crisp and professional and uncluttered. His new art was dark, convoluted, layered and primitive, obscuring warm colors with dark shadows.