Last Wednesday (starting on Tuesday eve), Israel celebrated Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, the centre of the three main Biblical Feasts. Shavuot is to be celebrated 7 weeks + 1, that is 50 days after the Sabbath of Pesach (Passover). While it appears clear from Scripture that these 50 days are to start on the Sunday, the first day after the regular weekly Sabbath that falls during the Feast of Unleavened Bread/Passover, most of Judaism counts from the day after Passover, that is from the 15th Nisan.
The Karaite’s however, do count from the Sunday and thus they will celebrate this Sunday 12th June.
While I believe the Karaite’s have interpreted correctly, I celebrated with Israel (who have 2 days of celebration in the Diaspora) for the sake of unity.
Israel celebrates the giving of the 10 Words on this day. I have paraphrased a very interesting article below on the chiastic nature of the 10 Words.
We read in Acts that the followers of Yeshua waited for Shavuot in Jerusalem, after Yeshua had ascended some 10 days before. They waited and then received great power from HaShem which was witnessed by thousands and which resulted in some 3000 becoming followers of Yeshua and believing his message that very day (see Acts 2).
Intriguingly this weeks Parshah (Torah Portion) is Numbers 8:1-12:16, which includes this passage:
Numbers 11:16-17
Then the LORD said to Moses, Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you.
And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.
Note here that HaShem’s Spirit, His Power ‘emanated’ from Moses to these followers, these elders who loved HaShem and were obedient to Moses. Thus Moses no longer bore the burden alone, but even more importantly, the light of Torah and the power to proclaim ir was now in the hands of many more so that the truth of the Almighty could be shared with a great many more and begin to emanate throughout the whole people of Israel gathered in the desert.
Fast forward to the miracle of Shavuot/Pentecost in Acts 2, and we see a very similar event, where just as Yeshua had predicted his proclamation of the Gospel and Torah was now able to emanate into the world through his followers, these ‘elders’ of The Way, who would now have the Power of the Almighty to enable them to proclaim Yeshua’s message, which was of course the message of the Almighty, just as Moses had been told when HaShem declared that He would sent a prophet who would speak His Words.
Deut 18:18-19
"I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him."
In Jerusalem for Shavuot at that time were very many zealous believers from the Diaspora, who saw this great outpouring of the Spirit of God. In returning home, the message of the Kingdom, the message of Yeshua was thus powerfully magnified and ‘emanated’ throughout the world so that Yeshua and his followers could truly be a ‘Light to the Nations’, that is, a revealer of Torah, of The Way (Ps 119) and of the Good News of the Kingdom (Luke 4:43).
See below for a paraphrase of an article on the chiastic structure of the 10 Words and also a summary of a midrashic commentary on the delegation/emanation of Numbers 11:16-17:
The Ten Words are ordered in a triple chiastic structure:
Chiastic structure is a literary structure used in ancient literature including the Bible.
For example, suppose that the first topic in a text is labeled by A, the second topic is labeled by B and the third topic is labeled by C. If the topics in the text appear in the order ABC…CBA so that the first concept that comes up is also the last, the second is the second to last, and so on, the text is said to have a chiastic structure. Also, a chiastic structure can be of the form ABBAABB…ABBA. (Wikipedia)
So to help visualize this we write it in this indented manner:
A
B
C
C
B
A
B
C
C
B
A
There is normally an inverted parallelism in the sequence.
For example, Matthew 7:6 contains a simple chiastic structure:
A "Do not give what is holy to dogs,
B and do not throw your pearls before swine,
B’ lest they trample them under their feet,
A’ and turn and tear you to pieces"
In this instance, the propositions A and B are reflected as in a reversed mirror image by the propositions B’ and A’.
This helps us understand this verse better as we can see that the dogs (A) tear to pieces (A’), and the swine (B) do the trampling (B’).
An very good example of formal chiasmus may be found in Genesis 17:1-25:
A Abram's age (1a)
B The LORD appears to Abram (1b)
C God's first speech (1b-2)
D Abram falls on his face (3)
E God's second speech - Abram's name changed (4-8)
X God's Third Speech
-the covenant of circumcision; (9-14)
E' God's fourth speech
-Sari's name changed (15-16)
D' Abraham falls on his face (17-18)
C' God's fifth speech (19-21)
B' God "goes up" from Abraham (22)
A' Abraham's age (24-25)
The ordering of the Ten Words can be seen to have a chiastic structure when placed into one of three categories:
emotion, speech, and action
emotion, speech, and action
The first two commandments, 1) Belief in God and 2) Not worshipping other gods, both have to do with what is in our hearts, what we feel to be true.
We are then told not to take God's name in vain; this is clearly speech.
The fourth Word, ‘Keeping the Sabbath’ is all about action, as is the fifth, as ‘honouring our parents’ is all about how we act toward them.
Beginning with the top of the second tablet (the 2nd 5 Words) we have: Murder, Adultery, and Stealing which are all ‘action’ sins.
The 9th Word, ‘Bearing false witness against your neighbor’ is a transgression through speech.
The final commandment, coveting that which belongs to your neighbor, is contained within one's heart, one's emotions.
AA
B
CC
C’C’C’
B’
A’
This order and categorization also helps us appreciate which are more difficult as it is always hardest to control the heart.
The above is mostly paraphrased from an article by Stacey Goldman (see http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/521897/jewish/The-Meaning-in-the-Order.htm)
Her conclusion is well worth contemplation:
“Through this literary analysis, we discover a very deep lesson from the Torah. When it comes to our relationship with G‑d, we need to work on our belief so that we can control our speech which will help to refine our actions. This will then further control our actions towards other people which will help to control our speech and refine our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves. This is what it is all about. We cannot respect and treat one another properly unless we respect and care about ourselves, and we can only truly care about ourselves when we recognize that we were created for a reason and that we need to have a relationship with our Creator.”
Numbers 11:16-17 and Delegation
“If the burden is too heavy for you to bear alone, says G-d to Moses, "Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you."
And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will emanate of the spirit which is upon you, and will bestow it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you bear it not yourself alone.
On the most basic level, this is the difference between physical and spiritual giving. In physical giving, the givers resources are depleted by his gift--he now has less money or energy than before. In spiritual giving, however, there is no loss. When a person teaches his fellow, his own knowledge is not diminished if anything, it is enhanced.
Upon deeper contemplation, however, it would seem that spiritual giving, too, carries a "price." If the disciple is of inferior knowledge and mental capability than the teacher, the time and effort expended in teaching him is invariably at the expense of the teachers own intellectual development; also, the need for the teacher to "coarsen" and simplify his ideas to fit the disciples mind will ultimately detract from the depth and abstraction of his own thoughts. By the same token, dealing with people of lower moral and spiritual level than oneself cannot but affect ones own spiritual state. The recipients of this "spiritual charity" will be elevated by it, but its giver will be diminished by the relationship, however subtly.
Indeed, we find an example of such spiritual descent in Moses bestowal of the leadership upon Joshua. In contrast to the appointment of the seventy elders, where he was told to "emanate" his spirit to them, Moses is here commanded to "Take Joshua the son of Nun, and lay your hand upon him... and give of your glory upon him" (Numbers 28:18-20). Here the Midrash comments, "Lay your hand upon himlike one who kindles a candle from a candle; Give of your glorylike one who pours from one vessel into another vessel."
In other words, there are two kinds of spiritual gifts: a gift that "costs" the giver nothing ("emanation", which is like "kindling a candle from a candle"), and a gift that involves a removal of something from the giver in order that the recipient should receive something ("pouring from one vessel into another").
There are times we indeed sacrifice something of ourselves for the benefit of a fellow. But there are also times when we commit ourselves to our fellow so absolutely--when the gift comes from a place so deep and so true within us--that we only grow from experience, no matter how much we give of ourselves.”
- by The Lubavitcher Rebbe (see http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/1088/jewish/The-Emissaries.htm for a fascinating article on the Rebbe which also relates to the ‘outpouring’ or ‘emanation’.
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