Shalom! This week is a double portion: Nitzavim (נִצָּבִים), “You are standing,” and Vayelech (וַיֵּלֶךְ), “And he went.”

Readings for Nitsavim:

Torah: DEUTERONOMY 29:10 [9 TANACH]–30:20
Prophets: ISAIAH 61:10–63:9
Apostolic Writings: ROMANS 10:1–13

Readings for VaYelech:

Torah: DEUTERONOMY 31:1–30
Prophets: NONE
Apostolic Writings: ROMANS 10:1–17

This week brings us to one of those Torah moments where everything seems to slow down. Israel is standing on the edge of the Land, Moses is nearing the end of his life, and the people are being asked to listen again before they move forward. This double portion—Nitzavim (נִצָּבִים), “You are standing,” and Vayelech (וַיֵּלֶךְ), “And he went”—captures something of that movement. Israel stands together before ADONAI, and then prepares to go forward without Moses. The future will include both faithfulness and failure, but one thing will remain constant: “ADONAI your God is the one Who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you” (Deut. 31:6).

It is in this setting that Moses places a remarkably direct choice before Israel: “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life” (Deut. 30:19). What strikes me is that God gives this command knowing full well Israel’s weakness. God knows of their future unfaithfulness. Yet their response still matters. They are called to love ADONAI, listen to His voice, and cling to Him. Yet God has not made that obedient response inaccessible: “The word is very near to you—in your mouth and in your heart, to do it” (Deut. 30:14). The way of obedience and life is not blocked or hidden. God has spoken and drawn near.

Paul returns to these very words in Romans 10 and applies them to the “word of faith” concerning Messiah Yeshua: “If you confess with your mouth that Yeshua is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). Paul is not contradicting Deuteronomy. He is showing us where the story has gone. The God who called Israel to choose life has acted decisively in Messiah, and once again the Word is near—in the heart and in the mouth, calling for trust and response.

Perhaps here is a place of connection for us. We can spend a great deal of our spiritual lives looking for something more from God—more clarity, more direction, another word—when sometimes the next faithful step is responding to what He has already brought near.

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Torah: DEUTERONOMY 26:1–29:9 [8 TANACH]
Prophets: ISAIAH 60:1–22
Apostolic Writings: LUKE 21:1–4

Who’s Your Daddy?

Most of us think worship begins when we give something to God. Moses begins differently.

Before an Israelite places the firstfruits before the altar, he is instructed to remember and recite a story. “My father was a wandering Aramean...” (Deut. 26:5). Before he offers his gift, he rehearses God’s faithfulness across generations. Before he gives, he remembers what he has first received.

That order matters because gratitude is not the result of giving. Gratitude is a response to receiving. It is the posture from which true giving flows.

Receiving Before Giving

The name of this week’s parashah is Ki Tavo (כִּי תָבוֹא), meaning “When you enter.” Israel is about to enter the land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They will cultivate vineyards they did not plant, harvest fields they did not sow, and live from an inheritance they did not earn.

God’s first instruction upon entering the land is not to celebrate their success, but to bring the first and best of the harvest back to Him. The firstfruits offering is more than an act of generosity. It is an act of remembrance. Every basket quietly declares, “Everything I have first came from You.”

The worshiper gives only because he has first received.

The Problem of Exclusion

Throughout the Parashah Project, I have identified The Problem of Exclusion that includes our tendency to grasp, possess, and protect what we believe belongs to us. We draw circles around our resources, our accomplishments, our influence, and even our place within God’s people, forgetting that everything we possess has first been entrusted to us.

Ki Tavo quietly dismantles that illusion. The land is God’s gift.

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Torah: DEUTERONOMY 21:10–25:19
Prophets: ISAIAH 54:1–10
Apostolic Writings: MARK 12:18–27

Power Reveals Character

Character is often revealed when life becomes difficult. It's kind of like a sponge that seems clean until you wet it and squeeze—and then the dirt comes out. The pressures and trials of life expose what is inside us.

Character is revealed even more clearly, however, when we hold power over someone else. Watch how a person treats a waiter, a child, an elderly parent, a customer service representative, or someone who can offer nothing in return. Moments like these expose what hardship often conceals. They reveal whether strength is being used to serve or to control.

That is precisely what Moses teaches in this week’s Torah portion.

Strength for the Sake of Others

The name of this week’s parashah is Ki Tetze (כִּי תֵצֵא), meaning “When you go out.” At first glance,

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Torah: DEUTERONOMY 16:18–21:9
Prophets: ISAIAH 51:12–52:12
Apostolic Writings: ACTS 3:13–26

Leading by Following

The leaders I have trusted most rarely talked about their authority. Instead, they carried a deep awareness of their responsibility. They did not need to remind others that they were in charge because they understood that leadership is something to steward, not possess. The insecure leader seeks authority to elevate himself. The faithful leader receives authority in order to serve others.

That is precisely what Moses teaches in this week’s Torah portion.

Authority Under Authority

The name of this week’s parashah is Shof’tim (שֹׁפְטִים), meaning “Judges.” At first glance, it appears to be a collection of instructions about four different leadership offices: judges, kings, priests, and prophets. Look more closely, however, and a single thread emerges. Every leader in Israel is first placed under God’s authority before being entrusted with authority over others.

Judges are commanded to judge impartially and according to God’s standards rather than their own preferences (Deut. 16:18–20). Kings are warned not to accumulate horses, wives, or wealth, lest their hearts drift from the LORD (17:16–17). Instead, they are to write their own copy of the Torah, read it every day of their lives, fear the LORD, carefully obey His commandments, and refuse to exalt themselves above their fellow Israelites (17:18–20).

That instruction is shocking.

In the ancient Near East, kings often claimed to rule by their own wisdom or even by divine status. Israel’s king was commanded to become a lifelong student of God’s Word. The higher the office, the deeper the submission.

The pattern continues. Priests receive no territorial inheritance because “the LORD is their inheritance” (18:2). Their lives testify that God’s presence is a greater treasure than land itself. Prophets are forbidden to speak their own ideas. Their responsibility is to speak God’s words and God’s words alone (18:18–20).

Each office is different. Yet all four are built on the same foundation.

Authority begins with submission.

Justice Begins Before the Courtroom

This helps explain why the portion begins with judges but is really about much more than justice.

A just society cannot be sustained merely by good laws or capable leaders. It requires

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Torah: DEUTERONOMY 11:26–16:17
Prophets: ISAIAH 54:11–55:5
Apostolic Writings: JOHN 7:37–52

Belonging Built In

Some of the most meaningful acts of hospitality are invisible. They happen before anyone arrives at your home. A meal is planned. An extra chair is unfolded. A place is set at the table. Long before a guest experiences welcome, someone has already decided they belong.

This is a good way to understand what Moses is doing in this week’s Torah portion.

The Table Is Already Set

The name of this week’s parashah is R’eh (רְאֵה), meaning “See!” Moses begins by calling Israel to look carefully at what God is placing before them: “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse” (Deut. 11:26). The choice is real. Blessing follows faithful allegiance to the LORD, while cursing follows turning aside after other gods. But almost immediately, Moses turns from the choice itself to the kind of community that choice is meant to produce.

Again and again, he returns to the place where God will put His Name. Just as repeatedly, he returns to the same four groups of people: the Levite, the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow. “You shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you...and the Levite within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance with you” (12:12). A few chapters later the circle widens still further: “...the Levite...the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow...shall come and eat and be satisfied” (14:29).

These details are not incidental. They reveal covenant design.

Notice what these four groups have in common.

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Torah: DEUTERONOMY 7:12–11:25
Prophets: ISAIAH 49:14–51:3
Apostolic Writings: HEBREWS 11:8–13

Every Friday evening, our family gathers to welcome Shabbat. We also almost always leave room at the table for guests. Some are dear friends. Others are joining us for the very first time. Over the years, I have come to appreciate a simple truth. Welcoming another person into our home has never made us less of a family. No one loses a place because another chair is filled. Instead, the conversations grow richer, the laughter becomes fuller, and the table itself somehow feels larger.

That is not how we instinctively think about belonging. We often assume that making room for someone new means someone else must lose a place. Healthy families do not work that way. Neither does the Kingdom of God.

Grafted In, Not Instead Of

Moses has just told Israel something hard to hear. They are not entering the Land because of their own righteousness. “Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land” (Deut. 9:5). The gift is not earned. It is rooted in the oath God swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Then, only a few verses later, Moses turns from the covenant itself to the character of the One who swore it.

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, Who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Deut. 10:17–19)

The word for sojourner is ger (גֵּר), “resident foreigner,” one who lives among the covenant people without being born into Israel. But pay attention to the ordering. God does not command Israel to love the ger by forgetting their own election. He commands Israel to love the ger immediately after reminding them of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The particularity comes first. The command to love the outsider follows from it. The two are not in tension.

This ordering matters. We often assume that God's commitment to one people must come at the expense of everyone else. This is what I call the Problem of Exclusion: the assumption that God's covenantal commitment is zero-sum, as though extending His covenant love to one necessarily diminishes His commitment to another. Scripture tells a different story. God's impartiality toward the sojourner in Deuteronomy 10 does not erase Israel's chosenness in Deuteronomy 7. It is grounded in the covenant He had already established with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God who shows no partiality in justice is the same God who bound Himself, particularly and irrevocably, to Israel. His impartiality does not negate His particularity. It expresses the purpose for which He chose Israel in the first place.

Paul says the same thing two ways.

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Torah: DEUTERONOMY 3:23–7:11
Prophets: ISAIAH 40:1–26
Apostolic Writings: MATTHEW 23:31–39

Hear.

Most of us read Scripture with our eyes. We move quickly, looking for a lesson to apply before moving on. But buried at the center of this week’s portion is a word that points in a different direction. It does not merely want your eyes. It wants your ears.

The name of this parashah is Va’et’chanan (וָאֶתְחַנַּן), meaning “And I Pleaded.” Previously, we were with Moses in his desperation, begging ADONAI to let him cross into the Promised Land. But the portion does not end with Moses’ plea. A few chapters later, the text turns and places before Israel a plea of its own: not to offer, but to receive.

Hear, O Israel: ADONAI our God, ADONAI is one. Love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Deut. 6:4–5)

This is the Shema. Every observant Jew who has ever lived has spoken these words, morning and night, in kitchens and in ghettos, in synagogues and in cattle cars. The Hebrew word shema (שָׁמַע) means far more than merely hearing sounds. In Scripture, to hear is to obey, to internalize, to let God's word reshape the architecture of your life. Adam heard God’s voice in the garden and hid. Israel heard God’s voice at Sinai and trembled. Shema is never passive.

Here is the pattern the text invites us to notice.

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Torah: DEUTERONOMY 1:1–3:22
Prophets: ISAIAH 1:1–27
Apostolic Writings: JOHN 15:1–11

Last week’s portion left us standing at the border. This week Moses stands at that same border and begins delivering his final words.

Before Moses says a single word of instruction, however, the text names the ground beneath his feet: beyond the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the Arabah, opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab (Deut. 1:1). Then comes a detail that changes the way we read everything that follows:

It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea (Deut. 1:2).

Eleven days.

Not forty years.

Before Moses even mentions Israel’s unbelief, the geography itself becomes an indictment. Their journey should have been short.

Moses begins his address

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I felt that more deeply after recently returning from Israel, where I had joined Christian, Jewish, and Messianic Jewish leaders for an emergency summit. There is something disorienting about standing in the land after spending months walking through Israel’s wilderness in the text. The geography itself seemed to testify: God’s promises are real. But the road into them is rarely straight.

What Numbers has been teaching us is this: a redeemed people can know the truth about God and still fail to trust him when the water runs out. Freedom from Egypt did not automatically become confidence in the wilderness. Portion by portion, we watched the Logic of Exclusion do its quiet work, not primarily through external enemies but through unbelief within. The deepest battle was never against Amalek, Moab, or Midian. It was the battle to trust God in every circumstance, walking by the faith of our father Abraham in obedient dependence upon Him. Station by station, Numbers has displayed both God’s unwavering faithfulness and Israel’s wavering discipleship. An entire generation left Egypt with the promise in hand, yet almost none lived to see it fulfilled. But the God who judged them was also the God who grieved over them. The exclusion was real. So was the grief on the other side of it.

Rolling the scroll across the divide into Deuteronomy, we now stand at the border. This Sunday, we’ll take the first steps together as we begin the opening portion of Deuteronomy.

דְּבָרִים (D'varim, “Words”) is the Hebrew name for Deuteronomy, and the same Hebrew root also means “matter” or “thing,” reminding us that in Scripture, words are never merely sounds. They are God-breathed realities that carry weight. This is not a second law handed down cold. It is a redeemed and disciplined people being prepared to carry covenant life forward, and the tool God uses is memory. The same words are spoken again so that what closed one generation might open the next, and the faith of Abraham might once again be forged in the sons of Jacob standing at the very river their parents refused to cross. Here we see the Theology of Belonging answering the Logic of Exclusion at the very place where unbelief did its damage.

Deuteronomy does not merely anticipate a border crossing that happened only once. Most of us eventually arrive at a “border crossing moment” of our own. A diagnosis. A loss. A calling we did not choose. A relationship that cannot move forward unless trust and forgiveness do. In those moments someone places words before us, and we must decide whether they are trustworthy enough to walk upon. Memory is given not to imprison us in the past but to prepare us faithfully for what comes next. And often, what comes next is not a full map but enough light for the next act of obedience.

A Pinprick of Light

When I was recently in Israel, I was able to reconnect with a dear old friend. Many years ago, this brother shared an image that has never left me. He said the windshield of our lives is often dark. We cannot see very far ahead. But then God gives a pinprick of light—just enough to catch our attention, turn our gaze, and redirect our focus forward.

The rearview mirror is different. There, illumination often comes in abundance. Looking back, we can see what God was doing with a clarity we rarely had while we were walking through it. But if God flooded the windshield with that same light, by what would we walk? By sight. Yet He is forming us to walk by faith.

I know this from my own life. For five years I walked through a vocational wilderness, moving through seasons of unemployment, underemployment, and feeling profoundly underutilized. Much of that windshield was dark. But on August 7, 2009, I discerned God's unmistakable invitation to cross the border out of that season and into what has become a season of vocational flourishing. I did not see the whole map. I saw enough light to step forward.

That is often how God leads us at the border. He rarely hands us the whole map. He gives us enough light for the next faithful step, and then invites us to trust Him with the road we cannot yet see.

If these reflections have been useful to you, the full aliyah-by-aliyah commentary for every portion lives at parashahproject.com, freely accessible to anyone who wants to go further with the text.

If you have been reading as a free subscriber and this work has meant something to you, I hope you'll consider becoming a Patron. Paid subscriptions make it possible for me to continue producing these weekly reflections, and they help create space for deeper resources still to come. Your support is not simply sustaining a publication; it is investing in the conviction that Relational depth produces Kingdom breadth.

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Shalom,

Thomas

Torah: NUMBERS 30:1 [2 TANACH]–32:42
Prophets: JEREMIAH 1:1–2:3
Apostolic Writings: ACTS 9:1–22

Torah: NUMBERS 33:1–36:13
Prophets: JEREMIAH 2:4–28; 3:4; 4:1–2
Apostolic Writings: JAMES 4:1–10

As Numbers comes to its close, Israel stands at the edge of promise. The wilderness has nearly ended, but the deeper question remains: What kind of people will cross the Jordan? These final portions answer that question by turning our attention not first to the land, but to covenant faithfulness.

Every Word Binding

Matot (מַּטּוֹת), "tribes," opens with a command about vows. Whatever a man vows before the LORD, he must do. Breaking that word is not described as a social failure. It defiles God's holiness (Num. 30:2). A people whose word can be trusted because it reflects God's own faithfulness become recognizable as His. Later in the same portion, the tribes of Reuben and Gad ask Moses for land east of the Jordan, outside the boundary of Canaan proper. Moses does not simply grant the request. He binds them to it: they will arm themselves, cross over, fight until the land is subdued, and only then return to the inheritance they asked for (Num. 32:20-24). Distance from the center does not excuse a tribe from covenant solidarity with the whole.

Every Station Remembered

Mas'ei (מַסְעֵי), "journeys," begins with forty-nine verses naming forty-two places Israel camped across forty years. Moses is specific that this record matters: "These are the journeys of the sons of Israel... and Moses recorded their starting places according to their journeys by the command of the LORD" (Num. 33:1-2). A list this exact is not bureaucracy. It is testimony. Forty years of human unfaithfulness, answered every single time by divine faithfulness, station by station.

The same portion commands cities of refuge (Num. 35:9–34).

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A brief note on timing. For the past several weeks, Israel and the Diaspora have been reading slightly out of sync. Israel observes one day of Shavuot, the Diaspora observes two, and this year that extra day pushed the Diaspora's readings a week behind Israel's, starting at Naso and lasting through Chukat–Balak. I've been writing t…

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Torah: NUMBERS 22:2–25:9
Prophets: MICAH 5:7–6:8
Apostolic Writings: ROMANS 11:25–32

I just returned from Israel, where I spent several days at the Jerusalem Summit and several more traveling with a small group of pastors and a fellow professor. Throughout the week, one theme kept resurfacing in our conversations: Presence. The Presence of God and the presence of others.

In Balak's eyes, Israel's presence was a danger to be removed. In God's eyes, Israel's presence was a people He had chosen to dwell among.

The One Who Has Already Blessed Them

Balak (בָּלָק) means devastator, and the name fits him well. Looking out from Moab, he sees Israel camped on his border, remembers what just happened to the Amorites, and concludes that this people’s existence is itself the threat (22:2–4).

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Torah: NUMBERS 19:1–22:1
Prophets: JUDGES 11:1–33
Apostolic Writings: JOHN 3:1–21

On August 7, 2009, after five years of vocational wilderness wandering, God called me to start a nonprofit called Faith for ALL. There was no job, no funding, no clear pathway forward. There was only a calling. I shared it with my father, and his confirmation was what I needed to take the step. That act of obedience opened a pathway I could not have engineered from the resources I could see. Nearly two decades later, it has led me to work at the intersection of faith and disability, to found a center at Wheaton College, and to write to you each week from inside a Torah portion. Provision followed vision. Vision came from calling. I did not understand the mechanism then. I am not sure I fully understand it now. But the calling was real, and obedience was the only faithful response.

When God Does Not Explain Himself

Chukat (חֻקַּת) is the word for ordinance, statute, a decree beyond human negotiation. The Torah has chukim (plural of chukat), commands from God that carry no explanation given and none owed.

Perhaps obedience itself is part of the point.

The red heifer is one example:

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Torah: NUMBERS 16:1–18:32
Prophets: 1 SAMUEL 11:14–12:22
Apostolic Writings: ACTS 5:1–11

Thirty-one years ago I surrendered my life to Yeshua. What followed was not a straight line. For five years I wandered through vocational wilderness — unemployed, underemployed, or underutilized in the job I had — and every social encounter carried the same loaded question: “what do you do?” I felt indicted every time. Then one day God made it plain: He was not releasing me from that season until I learned to lift my head and draw my joy from who He is rather than from what I had accomplished or how others might measure me. That was one of the hardest surrenders I have ever made. Looking back now, I can tell you it was one of the most necessary surrenders of my life. Korach never made it.

The Surrender He Refused

The portion takes its name from a man: Korach (קֹרַח). The name likely means “bald” or “bare,” though the Torah does not explain why he bears it. Instead, Scripture emphasizes something far more important: his lineage. Korach is the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi (Numbers 16:1).

He is not an outsider, a pagan infiltrator, or an enemy attacking Israel from beyond the camp. Korach is a Levite of the highest order, a Kohathite entrusted with carrying the holiest furnishings of the Mishkan (מִשְׁכָן), the Tabernacle itself. He possesses genuine access, standing, and calling within the covenant community.

And yet he uses all of it to tear the structure down.

What makes Korach’s rebellion so dangerous is that his opening argument is not fabricated. It is drawn directly from the Torah itself: “The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them” (Numbers 16:3). Korach is quoting the theology of Sinai back to Moses. God Himself declared Israel to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).

Korach’s error is not that he denies holiness. It is that he flattens it.

He takes the true declaration that the whole people are holy and turns it against the particular structures through which God chose to mediate that holiness. Korach assumes that if everyone is holy, then differentiated callings must therefore be forms of oppression. But particularity has always been God’s method.

The Logic of Narrowing

To confirm His promises to Abraham, God chose one people, Israel, to redeem all people. But from that one extended family, God chose one tribe from Israel to steward the holy things of God and mediate access to His presence: Levi and his three sons. God then chose one family from Levi: Aaron and his sons to uniquely serve as anointed priests.

Each narrowing was not an act of exclusion, but an act of focus. God concentrates covenant responsibility in order to widen covenant blessing.

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Torah: NUMBERS 13:1–15:41
Prophets: JOSHUA 2:1–24
Apostolic Writings: HEBREWS 3:7–4:11

Two Reports, One Land: Seeing Through Faith Instead of Fear

This past week I proposed that our home group take a new name: the Two Spies Brigade. The rising wars and rumors of wars are real and the darkness is indeed growing. But a match struck in a lit room has little effect while a single spark in a dark room is magnificent. You and I are seeing the same cultural demise all around us. But as lovers of God, we simply refuse to see the world through the lens of fear when the lens of faith is the one He has given us to see through.

The name of the portion is a command with a pronoun attached: Sh’lach L’Cha (שְׁלַח-לְךָ), “send for yourself.”

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Torah: NUMBERS 8:1–12:16
Prophets: ZECHARIAH 2:10–4:7
Apostolic Writings: REVELATION 11:1–19

One of the liturgical high points of a synagogue service is called Hagbah (הַגְבָּהּ), literally, “lifting.” It is the moment when the open scroll is raised high for all the people to see immediately after the public reading of the Torah. Every eye in the room turns toward the text. The congregation gazes upon words handed down from Sinai more than three millennia ago.

The words traditionally recited during Hagbah come, in part, from this very portion. Numbers 9:23 and 10:13 both close with the phrase al pi ADONAI b’yad Moshe (עַל־פִּי יְהוָה בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁה), “through the mouth of the LORD, by the hand of Moses.” Spoken while the scroll is held aloft, the declaration announces what every lifting of the Torah proclaims: this is not merely human literature. This is the d’var ADONAI (דְּבַר יְהוָה), the Word of the living God, spoken through a particular mouth, carried by particular hands, entrusted to a particular people for the sake of all peoples.

The name of this week’s portion carries the same movement. B’Ha’alot’cha (בְּהַעֲלֹתְךָ) takes its name from the sixth Hebrew word in Numbers 8:2, where God instructs Aaron: “When you set up the lamps,” b’ha’alot’cha, literally, “in your causing them to go up.” Not passive lighting. A priestly act. Aaron causes the flame to ascend, and the Mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן), the Tabernacle, fills with light.

B’Midbar

Numbers is the book of wilderness formation. Its Hebrew name, B’midbar (בְּמִדְבַּר), means “in the wilderness,” and the wilderness is dark in ways that go far beyond geography. The people who leave Sinai in this portion arrive at the edge of collapse, grumbling over manna, longing for Egypt, exhausting their leaders with fear and complaint. Moses himself cries out that the burden is too heavy for one man to carry.

And into all of it, the exhaustion, the bitterness, the failure of nerve, God’s first instruction before the journey began was this: cause the lamps to go up.

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Torah: NUMBERS 4:21–7:89
Prophets: JUDGES 13:2–25
Apostolic Writings: JOHN 12:20–36

I still remember lifting my children into my arms when they were babies. Drawing them close. Watching their eyes lock onto mine with that mixture of wonder, safety, and trust that only a child can give. In those moments, lifting them up was never merely physical. It was relational. To lift a child toward your face is to delight in them, to draw them near, to silently say: you belong with me.

The second portion in the book of Numbers is named for a Hebrew verb: Naso (נָשָׂא). Lift up. Elevate. Carry. The root carries the sense of bearing something upward, raising something toward its proper place. The full phrase God gives Moses is “lift up the heads of” the sons of Gershon and Merari, the remaining Levitical clans whose census had not yet been completed at the end of B’Midbar. But God’s instruction is about far more than counting. Every time God says naso in this portion, He is lifting people into ordered relationship around His holy Presence: counted individually, assigned purposefully, and drawn near as a redeemed community.

That is what this entire portion is about. Not the logistics of a wilderness camp. Not the administrative burden of tracking 8,580 Levites by clan and assignment. The portion named Naso is about what it looks like when God lifts a face toward His own and says: you are seen, you are counted, you belong here.

The Logic of the Tiered Structure

Look carefully at the architecture God establishes around the Tabernacle. Israel camped in the outer ring. The Levites camped in the inner ring, between the congregation and the dwelling place of God.

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Torah: NUMBERS 1:14–4:20
Prophets: HOSEA 1:10–2:20 [2:1–22 TANACH]
Apostolic Writings: ROMANS 9:22–33

Feasting in the Wilderness

A few years after I came to Wheaton College, I was invited into something I did not expect. A production called Feast transformed the college cafeteria into a great banquet hall. A table dozens of feet long became an elevated stage. Choirs sang. A theater group reenacted the crucifixion. My wife and I sat at the head table leading Sabbath liturgy. The whole room was arranged around one question: can God prepare a table in the wilderness?

That question comes from Psalm 78:19, spoken in doubt by Israel in the desert. The Psalmist records it as a failure of faith. But the book of Numbers answers it anyway.

The wilderness is not a detour to be avoided. It is a destination for learning. Every trail through it leads somewhere: toward rebellion and destruction, or deeper into the rest your soul craves. God gave His people a curriculum in the wilderness designed to teach them that rest was never a place they could build, buy, or demand. Numbers answers the Psalmist’s question with an invitation to the Table, where God himself is the Host and rest for the soul is the feast.

The Wilderness Has a Purpose

B'Midbar, בְּמִדְבַּר, “in the wilderness.” But the wilderness is not random. It is ordered.

God counts his people. He names them. He assigns them. He sees and knows them.

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It has not been easy reading. It was not meant to be. As a professor of Special Education I have spent my career paying attention to how people learn, especially how they learn things that do not come easily, things that require patience, repetition, and a teacher who refuses to give up on the student. Leviticus is that kind of text. It asks more of us than we expected. It rewards those who stay.

What it has been teaching us is this: holiness is not a barrier keeping people out. It is the condition that makes it possible for anyone to come in. Portion by portion, Leviticus has been quietly dismantling what I have come to call the Logic of Exclusion, the assumption encoded in so many of our structures and habits that some people do not fully belong. The Jubilee alone is enough to overturn a world. Debts canceled. Slaves freed. Land returned. Not because the powerful became kinder, but because the conditions that produce permanent inequality were removed at the root.

God’s House and Table were always meant to be full. From the first verse in Leviticus, God has been calling His people to come near to Him in holiness so they can go out in wholeness to love and serve others as a priestly people.

Rolling the scroll across the divide into Numbers, we now enter the wilderness.

בְּמִדְבַּר (B’Midbar, “In the Wilderness”) is the Hebrew name for Numbers, and it names the terrain honestly. This is the record of a redeemed people learning, slowly and painfully, that God can be trusted. The people were freed from Egypt. They received the Torah. They built the Tabernacle. And then they walked into the desert and discovered that knowing the truth about God is not the same as trusting him when the water runs out and the destination seems impossibly far.

This is not merely ancient history. It also points us to the interior life of anyone who has followed God through a season that did not resolve on their preferred timeline.

The invitation is clear. Bring what you have.

Even if it is small. Especially if it is small. A mustard seed of confidence that God is good, that He is sovereign, that He cares and is capable of giving you what you need when you need it. My friend Steve Allen, who passed away recently from ALS and knew something about waiting on God, said it this way: God is seldom early, but he is never late.

That is the word for the wilderness.

Suffering, held in the hands of a sovereign and loving God, has a way of turning into sweetness. Not despite the trial. Through it. That is where we are headed together.

We begin בְּמִדְבַּר (B’Midbar) next week. Come with your mustard seed. That is enough to start.

If these reflections have been useful to you, the full aliyah-by-aliyah commentary for every portion lives at parashahproject.com, freely accessible to anyone who wants to go further with the text.

If you have been reading as a free subscriber and this work has meant something to you, consider becoming a Patron. Paid subscriptions are the practical infrastructure that keeps this work going, and joining at that level is itself an investment in the conviction that Relational depth produces Kingdom breadth.

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Either way, if you know one or two people who might want to walk the Torah cycle together, a personal word from you will accomplish what no algorithm can.

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Shalom,

Thomas

Check out my suggested reading rhythm for a double portion at the Parashah Project.

Torah: LEVITICUS 25:1–26:2
Prophets: JEREMIAH 32:6–27
Apostolic Writings: LUKE 4:16–21

We are living through a digital revolution. This revolution is disorienting, loud, and reshaping how we see ourselves and one another. In the wake of the last great cultural upheaval, God planted renewal. We are praying for the same again: a faithful people who can carry a clear testimony into the next generation.

Leviticus feels like a similar moment. Complex. Overwhelming. Noisy. But this 3rd book of the Bible is neither outdated nor inaccessible. Leviticus is a manual of holiness. And holiness is God’s way of dismantling what I have come to call the Logic of Exclusion that whispers “you (or they) don’t belong” and restoring a shared life under God’s ownership.

B’har shows us how.

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