Passion to safeguard the ways of the LORD for future generation links the Torah reading פינחס Pinchas (Numbers 25:10–30:1) with its parallel passages about the final days of the First Temple (Jeremiah 1:1–2:3) and the anger from Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ) about the turning of the Second Temple into a “den of robbers” (John 2:13–22). Those accounts underscore that God has a passionate love for His people and doesn’t want them to succumb to the disastrous ends of their passions.
The LORD sends us into the world to be His ambassadors and part of the kingdom of priests. Will we go? How will we face challenges of our own making or ones that are out of our control? There will be times when we reap the consequences of our behavior and times we are victims of injustice inflicted on us. In scenarios, we need to look to the only one who can give us wisdom to react to those situations. That’s one lesson threaded through the Torah reading וישלח Vayishlach (“[and] he sent”, Genesis 32:3–36:43).
Another lesson is how division is toxic to the Kingdom of God. How are we living out apostle Paul’s counsel for unity and peace?: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (Romans 12:18 NASB).
In Vayishlach we see what happened when Ya’akov (Jacob) and and Eysau/Eysav (Esau) met again after 20 years. Edom/Eysau was born “red” and “hairy,” symbols associated with humanness, and his life is an example of living “by the flesh” versus “by the Spirit.”
Yom haKippurim (the Day of Coverings/Atonement) is seen as a time of self-reflection. Yes, in Leviticus 16 God teaches that one is to “afflict your souls,” which is taken to be a call for a fast, as seen in Isaiah 58. However, the apostolic letter to the Hebrews shows that the day is about reflection on the High Priest Who atoned God’s people once and for all time with His own blood.