The 40-Day Feast: Feast on God's WordChikamu

I attended many bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs growing up in Los Angeles. My favorite part was always when a temple leader would walk to the back of the sanctuary to retrieve the Torah. In synagogues throughout the world, this sacred scroll is kept at the back of the room within a cabinet called Aron haKodesh,1 or holy ark, in honor of the ark of the testimony, which held the stone tablets upon which God wrote the Ten Commandments.

For thousands of years, as well as on each of those bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah mornings, the doors or curtains of the “ark” were opened, allowing the rabbi or another temple leader to retrieve the Torah and carry it to the front of the meeting hall. As it made its way past each row, men and women of all ages would reach out to touch it!

As a young Christian, I knew that the Torah consisted of the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These books are the God-­inspired words recorded by Moses for the people of Israel and ultimately for us all. While Christians often refer to these books as the Pentateuch, which means “five books” in Greek, it is the Hebrew name Torah that explains God’s purpose in giving these books to us. Torah is best translated as “instruction.”2

It was at Temple Akiba, with arms reaching over mine to get to the scroll, that I saw for the first time a tattoo of numbers on the forearm of an elderly woman. Old enough to know my history, I realized that she was a Holocaust survivor. Decades after her liberation, in one of the back rows of Temple Akiba in Culver City, California, she stretched her weathered arms out to touch the Torah.

When it finally arrived at the front of the room, the rabbi sang these words: “Barukh attah adonai, elohenu, melekh haʿolam.” In English, “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe.” Nearly every person who took the platform for the rest of the ceremony also began with that familiar blessing. Looking back, I wish I had asked the older woman who sat beside me about her enduring faith — given her life struggles.

Throughout their long history, the people of Israel have faced one fierce foe after another. First, the Egyptians held them captive, then almost immediately the Amalekites threatened their newfound freedom on the other side of the Red Sea. Once they entered the land of Canaan, other nations were waiting to war with them. The Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, and perhaps the most famous of the early enemies of Israel, the Philistines.

Jesus Himself was born under the rule of the Roman Empire. That enemy was so oppressive that all of Israel cried out to God for a radical rescue. They pleaded for their long-­awaited Messiah, imagining Him with sword and shield, leading them to victory against their oppressors. But God, in His kindness, offered them a different sort of Savior and a different sort of saving. Instead of a mighty warrior with a slashing saber, God sent His own Son to go to battle against our ultimate captor, sin. Jesus came to set every one of us free from the penalties that the law required.

God’s Word, from Genesis to Revelation, is the complete revelation of God’s rescue story. It absolutely begins with the Torah, those five books of instruction, but then goes on to tell of the Messiah’s captive-­releasing arrival. That’s why, as Bible believing Christians, we ought to be stretching out our arms and reaching out our hands to touch God’s Word with the greatest fervor. And not just to touch it, but to let it touch us.

Thank You for setting the stage for our rescue in the first five books of the Bible. You gave us this holy instruction manual, telling us how to live right and righteous, knowing that we couldn’t do it on our own. As did the Israelites before us, we continue to go our own way. But You, O Lord, King of the universe, sent Your Son to rescue us from our self-­inflicted captivity! In the name of Jesus, our Messiah, Amen.