If you enter a hospital today, they ask you to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10, but what about grief? Exhaustion?
Being tired from lack of sleep and being tired because your child’s hungry and you have nothing to give them to eat are two different types of tired. There is a bone-crushing tiredness and a tiredness from working overtime. There’s a tiredness from chronic pain, lack of sleep, and mental exhaustion. There is A tiredness from situations that don’t seem to change year after year. And then there is grief.
On one occasion, at 20 years young, I had a cooler with ice and a pack of bologna and cheese for my 3 year old son. An extension cord was running across the hall from my neighbor’s apartment into mine, so I could plug in a lamp for light in my living room and listen to a three-year-old with the sweetest voice known to man tell me he was hungry. “Why no lights in my room, Mommy?” Grief.
This grief lingered for over a decade and became a weight of more than all the incidents because genuine grief looks into the future at the consequences of our actions and sins and how they affect everyone around us.
Thankfully, today, this child is a great provider and an even greater father to two young sons who have never gone without food. However, don’t open his kitchen cabinets because food will fall out.
Sin has repercussions.
The sins of the fathers. . . “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers–(Malachi 6:5-6) According to scripture, a man who does not provide for his household is worse than an unbeliever. Addiction causes many woes— so does pride.
Having true grief for those you love who cannot see their condition is not a finger pointing, it’s a longing to help them clean their garments and get eye salve, but what’s even more dire at times is seeing our own reflection/condition for the first time–all over again. Looking deeply into our walk and our thoughts.
I’m going to just step out and say it, “I’ve been walking in grief for days.” The other evening, I broke down, bawling over and over due to what I see. Right now, in the natural, I have cataracts on both eyes, but am seeing more poignantly than ever.
Remember when Yeshua wept over Jerusalem? “As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, “If only you had known on this day what would bring you peace! But now it is hidden from your eyes.” Luke 19:41-42. Yeshua sees the destruction that will come upon His people. He prophesies 70 AD. He tells them, “For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side. They will level you to the ground—you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”
Stoned to death. . . But, now, not one stone on another.
What a fearful condition to miss our visitation!
How does one discuss grief that bends you over and causes you to weep uncontrollably? Brené Brown discussed shame on a Ted Talk and broke the internet, but shame and grief are two different feelings. Grief is sorrow that takes your breath. There are many types of grief, just as the saying, “I’m tired,” has many layers.
Often, people have grief over the death of a loved one or a diagnosis that’s life-threatening, but some are dead that are not 6 feet under yet. Others have a spiritual sickness. Still, many of my friends, and two in particular, are experiencing such grief; I find no words to console them. The announcement is more than one can bear or drink. The cup is too bitter. Like Yeshua, we don’t even want to taste the medicine, just get on with the death!
With all the gadgets, sparkles, selfies, worldly lust and lustful desires of money, fame, accolades, delicacies, sexual desires, hidden agendas and more, we can be dead but not know it.
Yeshua said, “For judgment, I have come into this world so that the blind may see and those who see may become blind.” (John 9)
I’m having Surgery on both eyes this month. My eyesight has been ramping up to unbearable, but mysteriously, I have been seeing much more vividly in the spirit, and this vision has been painful.
Yeshua/ Jesus explains our condition. Like the priests in Leviticus, who had disfigurements or blindness, they could not enter the sanctuary. I must warn you, the following passages are hard to swallow, LITERALLY.
This week’s Portion is Emor and it means “speak.” The beginning and ending of this portion caused me great grief to read. Bookends enclosing His beautiful Feasts days.
“If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by prostituting herself, she profanes her father; she must be burned in the fire” (Leviticus 21:9). Punishment by fire included a man who marries both a woman and her mother: The Mishnah states:
They would sink him into manure up to his knees, and they put a rough handkerchief within a soft one, and he surrounds his neck. This one pulls [the handkerchief] in his direction, and that one pulls in his direction, until he [the condemned person] opens his mouth, and he lights the wick and throws it into his mouth, and it descends into his belly and burns his bowels.”
According to the Targum of Jonathan, they were to be burnt by pouring lead into their mouths: and so the manner of burning is described in the Misnah (g); they that are to be burnt are fixed in dung up to their knees, then they put a hard napkin within a soft one, and roll it about is neck; one draws it one way, and another another way, until he opens his mouth; then they take hot melted lead, and pour it into his mouth, which goes down into his bowels and burns them. But it was rather done with faggots, of which an instance is given”
OH, MY!!!
- Judah says: “Even he, if he died by their hand, they have not upheld the commandment of burning with respect to him. Rather, they should open his mouth with a pair of tongs against his will, and he lights the wick and throws it into his mouth, and it descends into his belly and burns his bowels.”
The Talmud subsequently specifies that the “wick” iny these procedures is made of lead (b. Pesach. 75a; b. Sanh 52a), such that the burning is accomplished by hot metal.[1]
I am in great distress reading such words. How could this be? Why wasn’t this prescribed throughout scripture? David has Bathsheba’s husband murdered. David’s son rapes his daughter. David does nothing. Solomon takes foreign wives. He loses the kingdom but no one stones him to death or takes tongs and pours molten liquid down his throat.
Robin Cohn from Women of the Bible Thinkers adds much knowledge concerning this situation by quoting Rabbi Lieber:
Rabbi Lieber suggests that Shelomith’s son pronounced God’s name, perhaps as part of the Danite religious practices. This angered the Levite priesthood which claimed sole jurisdiction over the proper way in which to worship God.
“The Blasphemer’s utterance challenges the priestly monopoly over religious activity… In the biblical period, women who struggled for communal or social power were driven to find it outside of mainstream Judaism; they found themselves marginalized by ritual practice, laws or inheritance, and conventions of family life. Despite the struggle of some women, like Shilomit, for independence and influence, the priests managed to consolidate their control, and this text functions to warn women and others who might seek religious power that they would be punished severely.” (Lieber, pp. 236-7)
Some things seem to never change. I often think about Judah, who wanted to burn Tamar to death. Some teachers state that stoning happened first, then the body was not given a proper burial but burned. Ironically, the commandments were written on stone. Yeshua brings a baptism of fire. The problem is we often are like Judah, eager to point out the sins of everyone around us swiftly, while our staff, ring, and tunic are in the hands of the one we accuse. The ones who had to prostitute themselves to be given what they rightly deserve—seed for the sower. And behold, there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, ( Luke 7:37 NASB). Ponder grief. Ponder fire. Ponder stoning. Ponder God’s daughters. Ponder Shelomith daughter of Dibri.
One For Israel Ministry lists many of the topics found in Parsha Emor:
Leviticus tells us that those with a contagious disease, translated as leprosy, must be put outside the camp and considered unclean. The Talmud takes it further, legitimizing the practice of throwing rocks at lepers [1].
- We also learn that women are unclean while menstruating – again, unlucky for anyone who suffers with abnormal bleeding.
- Then later we read that those with blindness, the lame and those with other defects are banned from certain areas of the temple.
- And of course, the temple was also a no-go area for the Gentiles.
- But we see a revolution taking place when Yeshua the Messiah overcomes all of these defilement’s and restrictions: He cures lepers, heals a man born blind, and delivers the woman with the issue of blood – unnamed outcasts were suddenly given new life and a new start. Biblical leprosy can be seen as a symbol for sin and sickness in general – the result of the Fall upon humanity. And yet Yeshua showed that he had the power and authority to deal with all of our ailments that paralyze and hold us back – spiritually and physically.[2]
Have you ever noticed that all the unclean issues and diseases listed in Leviticus were the same people Yeshua came to heal and love on? Yeshua corrects the leadership over and over again. He gives stern words to the assemblies in Revelation 3. Not much has changed today–dead men walking:
I know your deeds; you have a reputation for being alive, yet you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains, which was about to die; for I have found your deeds incomplete in the sight of My God. Remember, then, what you have received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know the hour when I will come upon you.”
To Laodicea, Yeshua says more poignant words:
“You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, white garments so that you may be clothed and your shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those I love, I rebuke and discipline. Therefore be earnest and repent.”
The wealthy and wise are found to be spiritually poor, blind, and naked–eye salve.
Characteristics of death: Empty laughs. Empty discussions about plans, celebrities, sports stars, and biblical knowledge that’s puffy but has no key to spiritual knowledge:
“Woe to you experts in the law! For you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” (Luke 11:52).
We sleepwalk or worse, watch those we love do rote as dead men, not knowing that they are dead, twice uprooted, dead and unaware that they are bleeding out, numb, stroking out, in need of an entire medical team. . . Pretending to be alive and clothed in righteousness. Like the children’s story, The Emperor’s New Clothes, everyone knew the emperor was naked, but they pretended he was not. It took a little child to expose his condition.
Little children have a way of speaking the truth.
Yeshua said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
(Matthew 18)
How do you become like a child, Job? How do you answer who made a storehouse for the rain? Who created the oceans– the horse? Oh, we know all about our knowledge, but like Job scraping sores with pottery, we lay in ashes and are called to stand up like a man and answer Him!
“Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
“Who is this who obscures My counsel by words without knowledge? Now brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall inform Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know!” (Job 38:1-5).
Surely we know… (sarcasm)
Yeshua gives a promise for our dead condition, “Truly, I tell you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death.”
If we keep His Word, we might suffer; mostly, we are told we will suffer. Those who walk in sin suffer too, but they are often unaware they are dead.
The greatest prophet to walk the earth was accused of having a demon. Have you been charged with the same? Men with bad eyesight see what they want to see. Men with leprosy wearing priestly robes and long tassels, sitting in the best seats and loving accolades from men accuse the Messiah of being demon possessed.
“Now we know that You have a demon!” declared the Jews. “Abraham died, and so did the prophets, yet You say that anyone who keeps Your word will never taste death. Are You greater than our Father, Abraham? He died, as did the prophets. Who do You claim to be?”
Jesus answered, “If I glorify Myself, My glory means nothing. The One who glorifies Me is My Father, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ You do not know Him, but I know Him. If I said I did not know Him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know Him, and I keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see My day. He saw it and was glad.”
Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?”
“Truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!
At this, they picked up stones to throw at Him. But Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple area.
John 8:52-59.
Jesus/Yeshua was hidden. We seek Him out. We yearn for His Face— His identity. We want to share with Him at His table, but we often still have grief. Paul called it the fellowship of His sufferings. We long for his kingdom to come. We need a Savior.
“Yeshua was hidden, and he went out of the temple.” He goes out of our temples when we are displeasing. This emptiness is the hollowest feeling one can feel. It’s a person-on-death role.
“Please do not take your Spirit from me!” David bellows.
David saw a man named Saul who could no longer hear; he could no longer see. He was like the ark of the covenant the sons of Eli grabbed like a magic wand, but the Ruach departed and did not fight for Israel that day. Eli’s sons die in battle. A birth happens, Ichabod—Empty, without glory. (click HERE).
Thankfully, for those who are dwelling close to the Master Yeshua, those applying eye salve, cleaning their ears, adjusting their mirrors, counting up to the day of Pentecost/ Shavuot with great expectation for an outpouring of His Spirit, He is faithful to light our tongues with holy fire and show forth his mighty power and his tender mercies.
Are you hungry? Living off cold bologna with little light? I’ve been there! Come to the altar. Get eye salve and white garments. Stop allowing your neighbor to plug in their cord— go to the source! Eat honey. Fall at the Master’s Feet and share your grief for the dead and the deadliness that needs life in your own person. Sit Shiva. Light a candle. Weep. Bawl if you must. Buy gold. Become blind so you can see. Become childlike and remember,
Weeping may endure for the night, but Joy comes in the MOURNING and the MORNING! Do you need more joy in your life? My devotional Jumping for Joy in the Midst of Sorrow can help. You can find it HERE!
Blessings,
Tekoa
[1] https://www.thetorah.com/article/burning-desire-punished-by-fire
[2] https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/the-leper-messiah/