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The Torah reading צו Tzav (“command,” Lev. 6:8–8:36) gives us the “show and tell” of how Israel’s high priest and the other priests were ordained and dedicated to God. Moses was showing Aaron and their sons how to do their work. You can give someone a book to read but we learn better when we can also watch and see how the task is to be performed.
Most of the ceremony was public, at least for the men of the community who were clean. This was the last time Moses conducted any sacrifices to God.
Kosher curricula: What are we supposed to learn from meticulous attention to food?
“Also the earthenware vessel in which it was boiled shall be broken; and if it was boiled in a bronze vessel, then it shall be scoured and rinsed in water.”
Leviticus 6:28 NASB
This verse is where we find the general rules on how to make cooking items in our kitchen kosher. Metal or glass pots and utensils that make contact with unclean meats can be scoured and cleaned with soap and water while earthen vessels, plastic or wooden items that make contact with unclean meat have to be thrown out.
I actually had a “kosher emergency” in my house not too long ago. Someone came to visit and brought a container with a shrimp dish in it to my home. When they were finished eating, they put the container in my sink, where my other dirty dishes were sitting. I threw away all the plastic and wood items that were in the sink with the shrimp dish. All the metal items had to be scoured throughly and cleaned. I did all of this because unclean food was put into my sink.
“So whoever breaks one of the least [important] of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least [important] in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices and teaches them, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:19 Amplified Bible
I took this “kosher emergency” with the shrimp in my sink as a learning experience. It was not so much learning how to clean my kitchen than a lesson in diligence in all areas of life, even my spiritual life. How diligent am I in following God’s instructions? What example do I present to those around me?
I don’t want to be in that category of disobeying even the littlest commandments and teaching others to do so as well. I just want to be in the Kingdom, but I don’t want to be at the bottom.
It’s important to keep the ritual items of the tabernacle clean but it’s also important to keep our homes clean. It’s also important to keep ourselves spiritually clean.
With most things in the Torah, where there is a law, there is an example of someone breaking it. These lessons are important so we can understand how God thinks, and why He does what He does.
The peace offering is usually a voluntary offering but it is a commanded offering as part of the pilgrimage festival of Shavuot. This peace offering includes offerings of both unleavened bread and two loaves of leavened bread. The peace offering must be consumed on the same day it’s offered. No doggie bags on Shavuot.
There are thanksgiving offerings that commemorate a milestone in one’s life such as the birth of a child, a wedding anniversary, etc.
The main purpose of the peace offering is to honor God and restoring peace between you and him. The peace offering is the last process of reconciliation with God when we make things right with Him through our repentance for sin.
Hosea and Hebrews: Shadows of heart connection with Heaven
The books of Hosea and Hebrews tell us that the physical offering of animals never were as important to God as our actions and our words. Our own words and actions are our real offerings to God and they can be good or they can be really bad.
Shallow offerings are worthless to God and much of the time we can’t tell if someone’s offerings of praise to God are shallow or deep, but God knows. God knows if a person has experienced a deep change of heart or not. Good words and actions don’t matter on Shabbat if the person speaks and acts like an atheist the other 6 days of the week. The thing is that we are guilty of being shallow towards God at one time or other. The issue is do we double down on the inconsistency or do we want to change?
“Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.
“He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, That we may live before Him.
“So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth.”
Hosea 6:1–3 NASB
Hosea uses sarcasm to make his point. God responded in Hosea 6:4–11. God sees though the false piety of the people (Hosea 6:1–3) and calls it out. Hosea replies to the shallowness of the people, telling them that their shallow praise of God and their hypocrisy disgusts God.
Put yourself in their shoes for just a moment. The people were enjoying their life of lewd and grotesque behavior. They would go serve God in the Temple for a few days and expect that to erase their “bloody footprints.” Their praises to God were like the morning clouds, here one minute and the minute any light shines on them, poof, they are gone. Their repentance had no depth to it. That was their attitude towards God and God tells them, through the prophet Hosea, that this kind of thinking disgusts Him.
Eating with ‘tax collectors and sinners’
The entire book of Hosea was written to call out the people’s unfaithfulness, backsliding and hypocrisy. Yeshua quotes this in Matthew 9:9–13.
As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him.
Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?” But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. “But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 9:9–13 NASB
Yeshua is telling the pharisees to re-read Hosea 6. He is telling them in not so many words that their holiness is shallow, that it’s just for show and they are not impressing God with their virtue signaling.
Aaron’s biggest failure up to the point of his ordination was how he participated in the incident of the Golden Calf. Why did God choose Aaron to be the High Priest? God could have chosen someone else, but He doesn’t.
Big sins, big repentance, big forgiveness: Lessons and warnings from the lives of Manasseh and Aaron
One doesn’t get much worse than the Manasseh the king of Judah, as recorded in 2Kings 21:1-16. 2Chronicles 33:10–17 explains why such a wicked man was allowed by God to reign for 55 years.
Manasseh, the most corrupt king Judah ever had, was captured by the Assyrians, and we would think that God have just left him there. Manasseh had a lot of blood on his hands, he was a murderer, even of his own son. Yet, when Manasseh repented, God brought him back to Jerusalem and back to his throne. Once he was back in Jerusalem, Manasseh cleansed Judah of idolatry, showing that his repentance was deep and real.
Manasseh lived many years in evil, yet when he repented and started walking in righteousness, God forgave him and restored him. He did the same thing for Aaron. That’s what Heaven wants (Ezekiel 18:19–32).
Yeshua told a story in the house of Simon the Pharisee that elaborated on this point in Luke 7:36–49. Simon’s love for God was much more shallow than that of the woman washing Yeshua’s feet.
Forgiveness for the mastermind of the Golden Calf
How profound is it that Aaron, who had committed such as grievous sin that caused thousands of deaths, was forgiven and granted him and his heir the status of High Priest? Aaron should have been the first one slaughtered by God after the sin of the Golden Calf, but he was forgiven instead. How much did Aaron love God as a result? The one who has been forgiven much is more grateful than the one who was forgiven little.
Manasseh was even worse than Aaron, yet when he repented, God also forgave him. The Apostle Paul had the blood of many believers on his account, yet he repented and God forgave him, too. All of these men, who were forgiven much, and responded with a greater love for God in their work for Him as a result.
““For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8–9 NASB
I’m glad I am not God. If I were, Manasseh would have been taken out as soon as he decided to become a mass murderer. I don’t have the patience for that. God is so much more patient than we are and rather than being angry at Him for being patient, we should be grateful for His patience.
We all need to figure out what our offering to God will be. Will our offerings be offerings of shallow faith, shallow love, shallow actions? Or will our offerings come from a deep faith, deep action and deep love for God?
Summary: Tammy