Chatan V’Kala (Bridegroom and Bride)

This week we have a special Torah reading. The reason for this is that this Shabbat is a Kol HaMoed (intermediate days) Succoth Shabbat. After reading the portion for this week, I found it hard to find why our sages chose this particular section of Torah in the first place. The only connection this portion has to Succoth is the last verse of the Parsha where it says:

Shemot {34:26} You shall bring the first of the first-fruits of your ground to the house of HaSHEM your G-D.

Succoth is the season of the summer harvest and it is the time just prior to the winter rainy season in Yisrael (Israel). Once the rain starts, after Succoth, the ground gets too soft, the plants get over watered and that makes harvesting difficult if not impossible. So it is on Succoth that every Israelite, being a farming society, is to present themselves before HaShem in Yerushalyim with an offering of the first and best of their summer harvest.

Our Parsha starts out with Moshe (Moses) pleading with HaShem to continue to travel with His people through the wilderness. The Chet Haegel (Golden Calf) affair had brought HaShem’s wrath against Yisrael and He was testing Moshe to see if he would stick by his flock or selfishly accept HaShem’s offer to create a new nation from out of his loins. Of course Moshe passed the test and unquestionably sided with bnei Yisrael. Herein I believe we find hidden our connection between this reading and the moed (Feast of) Succoth.

Shemot {33:12} Moshe said to HaSHEM, "Behold, You tell me, 'Bring up this people:' and You haven't let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found favour in My sight.' {33:13} Now therefore, if I have found favour in Your sight, please show me now Your ways, that I may know You, so that I may find favour in Your sight: and consider that this nation is Your people." {33:14} He said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." {33:15} He said to Him, "If your presence doesn't go with me, don't carry us up from here. {33:16} For how would people know that I have found favour in Your sight, I and Your people? Isn't it in that You go with us, so that we are separated, I and Your people, from all the people who are on the surface of the earth?"

Before one can harvest a crop there is a lot of work to be done. The land has to be cleared and prepared, the field has to be ploughed, furrows have to be made and then the seeds planted. Once planted the farmer has to tend the crops constantly monitoring them as they grow from seedlings to mature plants. The crop also has to be protected. Birds can come and eat the seed, wild animals can come and destroy the crop or eat the produce, weeds have to be removed; a farmer’s work is never done! Harvesting, although it is the reward of all his labour comes to the farmer at a very high price: a price of many hours of blood, sweat and tears.

Moshe had put a lot of man hours into bnei Yisrael and it had been nothing but hard work. Blood sweat and tears were expended in leading these people from Mitzrayim (Egypt) to Har (Mount) Sinai. This leg of the journey was a real milestone for Moshe; getting millions of people to the point where they were now standing before HaShem, even though it was in their sin. As good and as tempting HaShem’s offer may have sounded at the moment, Moshe had put too much work and effort into bnei Yisrael to abandon his crop now.

Moshe was like a farmer. He started with a raw group of people, like a farmer starts with a raw piece of land. He softened them up, he prepared them, he planted the seed of the Word of G-d in them and he watched over and protected them. Moshe was not going to give up now, no not until he saw the fruit of his labour. He knew these people would ultimately become a fine harvest, one that he would be able to present as an offering before HaShem. The beautiful part about this all is that in the end he did. Even though Moshe was not able to enter into the land, bnei Yisrael was ripe and ready, why? Because of Moshe’s preparing, ploughing, planting and caring he was able to present a harvest to the L-rd.

There is another harvest which is going to be presented to HaShem, it's us, the goof HaMashiach (body of Messiah), that is all those who have had active emuna (faith) in Mashiach, and the One who sent Him. One day the second Moshe, Yeshua HaMashiach (the Messiah) will present His bride spotless and without blemish to the Father.

Yehudah/Jude {1.24} Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, {1.25} To the only wise G-d our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Rabbi Jack "Yaacov" Farber is the spiritual leader of Congregation Melech Yisrael in Toronto, Canada.

Copyright 2004