Torah Ki Tetse – When you go out
D’varim (Deuteronomy, Words) 21:10 – 25:19
Haftorah: Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 54:1-10
Brit Chadashah: MattitYahu (Matt) 5:27-32; 1 Cor. 5:1-5
The storyline would make a good movie. A soldier goes out to war. His army defeats the enemy, slays all the soldiers, and carries away captives. The soldier looks at a beautiful woman, now destitute of the men she had always known. The emotions of the heat of a bloody battle are still burning recklessly inside of him. The man takes the woman to be his war bride.
At this point, I imagine you won’t find a movie out there that will follow the rest of the Torah’s storyline. If you do, let me know.
Back home, the soldier has orders to keep regarding this woman. Hollywood would have nothing to do with the rest of this story. He has her cut off her hair, work on her nails and replace her clothing. She would have to lose much of her outward appearance and her former identity. She would have to take on a whole new culture and identity. What a shock!
How dare he! Feminists would protest! Not only that, there would be no wicked scene of sexual immorality to captivate the audience – no instant gratification where he consumes her upon his lust, not even a romantic setting of ‘love (lust) at first sight.’
She is allowed a whole month to grieve the loss of her father and mother. Only after that is he allowed to go in to her and marry her, for her to become his wife. What movie producer would want to show that?
The Right Start for a Marriage
What principle is the Torah teaching us about a man who meets a woman and takes her to be his wife? Hollywood scenes are often cruel and deceptive. But, the ways of YHWH are always kind and merciful, loyal, and true.
Like a soldier is to be kind to his war bride, YHWH requires any man to be kind and patient with his woman before he takes her to be his wife. A young woman needs time to transition from her family ties before she is joined to a husband. The man cannot act upon her to immediately gratify his flesh but he must truly love her.
Love is patient, love is kind. 1 Corinthians 13:4
The new relationship must be built on the fruit of the Spirit and the commandments of YHWH, or the marriage would become a disaster. A marriage will miserably fail if founded on the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. 1 John 2:16
Many of us adults know this the hard way. Our youth must be taught how to have a blessed and solid start to their relationships with the opposite sex.
Please, we cannot avoid this issue! Many lives are at stake here.
Yet we must admit that all of us have missed the mark of Torah and are guilty of breaking the commandment “Thou shall not commit adultery.” Yeshua taught that if a man even looked at a woman with lust in his heart, he’s committed sin (Matthew 5:28). Pornography and sexual immorality are rampant in the media, in our society, and yes, it’s a problem within a congregation close to you. We must be diligent in guarding ourselves and our children against the flood of immoral evil the enemy would unleash upon us. We must find Refuge in our Savior.
Good News for the Sexually Immoral
The good news is that Yeshua not only forgave His adulterous Bride of her sins, but He broke the power of adultery and slavery to sexual sin through the work of the cross. Paul wrote this to the carnal Corinthians, where sexual immorality was a huge problem:
And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with excellency of word or wisdom, declaring to you the Testimony of God. For I decided not to know anything among you except Yeshua the Messiah, and Him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2
Oh, so we can talk intellectually and articulately about the Torah all we want but still miss the mark and struggle with sin. There are smart people among us who can’t seem to free themselves from sexual immorality, such as internet pornography. It doesn’t matter how much we know in our heads about what is right and wrong; only with a heart full of faith in the power of the cross and in the power of His blood can an addict be set free and stay free.
Paul wrote that the preaching of the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the intellectual Greeks (1 Cor 1:23). Let me propose to you that the cross seems foolish to many Torah scholars as well. How often do you hear about the Messiah on the cross as the answer to breaking sexual sin?
Paul went on to explain why the cross is a stumbling block: A natural (carnal) man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know them because they are spiritually discerned. But the spiritual one discerns all things, but he is discerned by no one.
1 Corinthians 2:14-15
So, suppose a person is truly spiritual. In that case, he will understand why especially in the adulterous society that we live in, how desperately we need to hear about the ‘foolishness of the cross.’ I can testify that the only way I can keep from lusting after women, whether pornographic images or immodestly dressed women on the street, is by denying myself, picking up the cross, and following my Savior Yeshua. That’s it. I must keep looking to and thinking about Yeshua, the Messiah, and Him crucified, or I’m back into sin again. How dare I do that, sinning against my Savior Who hung on the cross for me?
Winning the War Between the Flesh and the Spirit
Paul tells us that striving against sin by the flesh is not the answer:
For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For to will is present to me, but to work out the good I do not find. Romans 7:18
So if we are honest with ourselves, you and I have the same thing going in our flesh, warring against our spirits. Oy vey!
Notice that he wrote that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing – but not in my born-again spirit. In my inner being. That’s where true and pure love is for another person, for my spouse, or for anyone else. That’s why it is so important that we emphasize what Yeshua said, “You must be born again.” John 3:7
We must spiritually discern with every decision that we are ‘spirit, soul, and body which are entirely to be ‘preserved blameless’ (1 Thessalonians 5:23). So let’s deny the flesh and follow the Spirit. To pick up the cross and follow Yeshua, knowing nothing ‘but Him crucified,’ is to live not after the flesh but after the spirit.
For if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live. Romans 8:13
That’s the road to a victorious life – and a good marriage, no less!
When we think of all that Yeshua did to redeem the adulterous bride – drinking the bitter cup, being beaten, bruised and bloodied, stripped naked, His beard plucked out, nailed to the cross, dying of a broken heart – how could we ever want to hurt Him ever again by sinning against Him and against our own bodies (1 Corinthians 6:18)? Stay on course – ‘know Yeshua Messiah and Him crucified.’ 1 Corinthians 2:2
Let’s take heed to ‘flee fornication’ when we feel the prompting of the Spirit when temptation is coming our way. Make like Joseph and run from that enticing woman, abandoning it all! The married should be committed to each other ‘until death do us part,’ like Yeshua is committed by His marriage covenant with us.
The War Bride Forgives
Think about the emotions the war bride may have had to overcome after losing her family and being plunged into a radically different culture and lifestyle. Do you think she may have had to overcome feelings of bitterness and resentment for the great losses in her life? How could she forgive if her new husband was not kind and did not give her that crucial month to mourn and to find healing and freedom from her extreme emotions?
Her new husband had to be kind and a man who was quick to forgive in order for her to forgive. If he was a bitter, resentful guy harboring ill feelings towards parents or siblings, do you think she would be as capable of forgiving the people who had slain her family and her people? What kind of relationship would they have then?
The warrior had to have done for his war bride what Paul instructed the Ephesians to do:
Get rid of all bitterness and rage and anger and quarreling and slander, along with all malice. Instead, be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other just as God in Messiah also forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32
The loving-kindness of the warrior for his new bride had to be the true love of Elohim for his marriage to work. If all he had was just natural affection than bitterness and resentment could easily creep into his household. Any marriage can make it with genuine, selfless love that’s kind and patient. Yeshua’s love is the way!
Love Never Fails!
When hard times come, faith in the Messiah and His unfailing love for us will bring us through every affliction. Truly believing this may be one of our biggest challenges.
If we have to leave our homes with death and destruction surrounding us and our enemy seeks to destroy us, will we trust Him to regather us out of His great compassion? (Deuteronomy 30:3) Will we really believe that nothing, no power in heaven or earth, can separate us from the love of our Elohim? We need to be clinging fast to Yah’s everlasting love for us (Romans 8:31-39)
Will we choose to walk in His covenant of shalom with us when mountains fall, and the hills shake? Will we continue to be kind and merciful when we receive the opposite treatment from our enemies, from those closest to us, even from a spouse?
I pray that Hebrew Roots believers everywhere see His instructions on being kind, loving, and respectful towards others. This Torah portion is full of great examples of how to be in a word–kind. In the past, we haven’t generally been known as kind people, but rather judgmental and legalistic. Would you agree that is changing about us? Praise Yah!
Folks have asked Leslie and me for advice on what congregation to attend. Our advice? “Go where the love is.” Go where the loving-kindness of our Messiah is not just being demonstrated towards a circle of friends, but for hurting people who have suffered trauma, rejection, bitterness, neglect, sickness, sorrow, and great loss. Go where the people are loving. Yeshua went out of His way to love and to heal.
May they know that we are His disciples by our love. Pray that we will be the kind of a bride Yeshua is looking for, prepared to meet Him when He comes again. Pray that we are found faithful and full of loving kindness on that day. What a day that will be! HalleluYah!
Ki ley’olam chasdo – For His mercy endures forever,
David Klug