Distinguish

 Reading last week’s Parashat Acharey Mot, I found myself being intrigued by the following: “Aaron shall enter the holy place with this: with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering” (Leviticus 16:3).  As I read this, a whimsical thought came to my mind: “Wow! Can you imagine taking a 900 kilogram (or 2,000 pound) bull and a 90 kilogram (or 200 pound) ram and carry them into the holy place?!”  This of course was not at all what had occurred, as is evidenced by the text that follows.  Aaron only brought the blood of the bull and the ram into the holy place.  But then the (somewhat rhetorical) question arises, how does YHVH know which is the blood of the bull and which is the ram’s?  For us who study the Torah, it is obvious that the life of the animal is in its blood.   And where did the life, in this case of the bull and the ram, originate from?  From the first bull and ram that YHVH created by His word. Just like any “seed which is after its kind”, each and every one has been given its identity by He who is the Word.  This immediately points to Yeshua.  ^“For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created by Him and for Him.  And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17).

Every living thing owes its identity to Elohim’s “Word”. This is why Yeshua said to the two men who were walking on the road to Emmaus:  “And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27).  Earlier on, in a discourse in Jerusalem Yeshua addressed His detractors: “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words? "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me”   (John 5:46-47; 39).  

Thus, just as YHVH distinguishes between the blood of a bull and that of a ram, He likewise differentiates the various human species as well, confirming this fact, scripture says:   “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29).  Who did the Father foreknow? He only knew His Son and the Son knew the Father.  The life of the Son/Word is in the “seed” that He chose, that He foreknew, and whom He predestined to be made manifest to the creation in order to set it free.

This seed came out of Jacob and according to the prophet Amos YHVH sifted it among the nations.  “’I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob,’ declares YHVH. ‘For behold, I am commanding, and I will shake the house of Israel among all nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, but not a kernel will fall to the ground” (Amos 9:8-9 emphasis added).  Later in the same chapter, YHVH tells us why “not a kernel [seed] will fall to the ground”. It is because ‘”…I will restore the captivity of My people Israel, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them, they will also plant vineyards and drink their wine, and make gardens and eat their fruit.  I will also plant them on their land, and they will not again be rooted out from their land which I have given them,’ says YHVH your Elohim” (Amos 9:14-15 emphasis added).  Being planted by YHVH’s hand they will become His “planting [or plantation] that He may be glorified” (Isaiah 61:3).