Grace and Truth

This website is under construction !

Search in "EnH":

Home -- Content: Series 7 (Laws) -- Translation: English -- Book: 1 (Tora) -- Part: 1 (Positive) -- Command: 50 -- Text
Previous Command -- Next Command

The Sharia of Moses in the TORA
Part 1 - The 248 Positive Commandments of the Tora

50 - THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES ADDITIONAL OFFERING


Numbers 29:13 -- “You shall present a burnt offering, an offering made by fire as a sweet aroma to the LORD: thirteen young bulls, two rams, and fourteen lambs in their first year. They shall be without blemish.”

The actual execution of this commandment devolved upon the priests.* “It is a positive commandment decreed of the Torah to offer up (public and solemn) supplications (unto the Lord) and to sound trumpets over every calamity that befalls the community, as it is said, (When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets) (Numbers 10: 9). It is thus (as if the verse had decreed:) ‘Whenever you are beset by any calamity whatsoever, as by drought, pestilence, locust, etc., you are to offer up (public and solemn) supplications (unto the Lord) concerning it and to sound (the trumpets).’ Moreover, such conduct is of the essence of repentance, for when calamity befalls the people, and they offer up (public) supplications concerning it, sounding also the trumpets (as prescribed), all are bound to realize that it is owing to their evil ways that misfortune has befallen them, as it is said, (Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have withheld good from you.) (Jeremiah 5: 25) and this (repentance along with such realization) will cause the cessation of the calamity from their midst. If, however, they neither offer up such supplications nor sound the trumpets, declaring that what has befallen them is but a natural event, or that this misfortune is the result of chance and accident, their course is one of wickedness, and causes them to persist in their evil ways, so that their misfortune is bound to be followed by many others. It is with such conduct in view that Scripture declares, (And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you in fury) (Leviticus 26: 27- 28). For it is as if the verse had declared, (If when I cause misfortune to befall you – thereby really calling you to repentance – you (will not for all this hearken unto Me but walk contrary unto Me, and) declare this visitation to be merely a matter of chance, (then I will walk contrary unto you) and I will increase My fury, by which this ‘chance’ was occasioned to befall you”.**

* Mishneh Torah, Abodah, Hilchoth Kle Ha-Mikdash III, 5
** Mishneh Torah, Zmanim, Hilchoth Taanioth I, 1- 3

Top

www.Grace-and-Truth.net

Page last modified on March 17, 2010, at 07:34 AM | powered by PmWiki (pmwiki-2.3.3)