Torah Portion for 08/12/2023

This passage from Leviticus contains a series of blessings and curses that God promises to the Israelites based on their obedience or disobedience to His laws. If they follow His commands, they will experience prosperity, peace, and protection. However, if they reject His laws, they will face punishment, including diseases, famine, and defeat by their enemies. God also mentions the importance of confessing their sins and humbling themselves before Him. He assures them that even in exile, He will not completely reject them and will eventually remember His covenant with their ancestors. The passage also includes instructions for valuing vows and offerings to Yahweh, including the evaluation of lives, beasts, houses, and fields. The laws and right-rulings were given to the Israelites by Yahweh through Moses on Mount Sinai. Leviticus, chapter 26, verse 3 through chapter 27, verse 34. If you walk in My laws and guard My commands and shall do them, then I shall give you rain in its season, and the land shall yield its crops, and the trees of the field yield their fruit. And your threshing shall last till the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last till the time of sowing. And you shall eat your bread until you have enough, and shall dwell in your land safely. And I shall give you peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one make you afraid. And I shall clear the land of evil beasts, and not let the sword go through your land. And you shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. And five of you shall pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you pursue ten thousand. And your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. And I shall turn to you, and make you fruitful, and shall increase you, and shall establish My covenant with you. And you shall eat the old supply, and clear out the old because of the new. And I shall set My dwelling place in your midst, and My being shall not reject you. And I shall walk in your midst, and shall be your Elohim, and you shall be My people. I am Yahweh your Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Mithraim, from being their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you walk upright. But if you do not obey Me, and do not do all these commands, and if you reject My laws, or if your being loathes My right-rulings, so that you do not do all My commands, but break My covenant, I also do this to you. And I shall appoint sudden alarm over you, wasting disease and inflammation, destroying the eyes, and consuming the life. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I shall set My face against you, and you shall be smitten before your enemies. And those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you. And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I shall punish you seven times more for your sins. And I shall break the pride of your power, and shall make your heavens like iron, and your earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain, and your land not yield its crops, nor the trees of the land yield their fruit. And if you walk contrary to Me, and refuse to obey Me, I shall bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins, and send wild beasts among you, which shall bereave you of your children. And I shall cut off your livestock, and make you few in number, and your highways shall be deserted. And if you are not instructed by Me by these, but walk contrary to Me, then I also shall walk contrary to you, and I Myself shall strike you seven times for your sins. And I shall bring against you a sword, executing the vengeance of My covenant. And you shall gather together in your cities, and I shall send pestilence among you, and you shall be given into the hand of the enemy. When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back to you your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. And if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I shall walk contrary to you in wrath, and I Myself shall punish you seven times for your sins. And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and eat the flesh of your daughters. And I shall destroy your high places, and cut down your sun pillars, and put your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols, and My being shall loathe you. And I shall turn your cities into ruins, and lay your set-apart places waste, and not smell your sweet fragrances. And I shall lay the land waste, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. And I shall scatter you among the nations, and draw out a sword after you. And your land shall be desert, and your cities ruins. And the land enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies waste, and you are in your enemy's land. Then the land would rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies waste, it rests, for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it. And as for those of you who are left, I shall send fateness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, and the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee. And they shall flee as though retreating from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. And they shall stumble over one another as from before a sword when no one pursues. And you shall be unable to stand before your enemies. And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And those of you who are left rot away in their crookedness in your enemies' lands, and also in their fathers' crookednesses, rot away with them. But if they confess their crookedness, and the crookedness of their fathers, with their trespass in which they trespassed against me, and that they have also walked contrary to me, and that I also have walked contrary to them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies, if their circumcised heart is then humbled, and they accept the punishment of their crookedness, then I shall remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Yitzchak, and also my covenant with Abraham, and remember the land. The land was abandoned by them, and enjoying its sabbaths while laying waste without them, and they were paying for their crookedness, because they rejected my right-rulings, and because they are being loathed by my laws. And yet for all this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I shall not reject them, nor shall I loathe them, so as to destroy them, and break my covenant with them. For I am Yahweh their Elohim. Then I shall remember for their sake the covenant of the ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Mitzrayim, before the eyes of the nations, to be their Elohim. I am Yahweh. These are the laws, and the right-rulings, and the Torah, which Yahweh made between himself and the children of Israel, on Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moshe. And Yahweh spoke to Moshe, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When a man separates a vow by your evaluation of lives unto Yahweh, when your evaluation is of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old, then your evaluation shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the set-apart place. And if it is a female, then your evaluation shall be thirty shekels. And if from five years old to twenty years old, then your evaluation for a male shall be twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. And if from a new moon old up to five years, then your evaluation for a male shall be five shekels of silver, and for a female your evaluation shall be three shekels of silver. And if from sixty years old and above, if it is a male, then your evaluation shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels. But if he is too poor to pay your evaluation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest shall set a value for him. According to the ability of him who vowed, the priest shall value him. And if it is a beast of which they bring an offering to Yahweh, all such given to Yahweh is set apart. He is not to replace it or exchange it, good for spoiled or spoiled for good. And if he at all exchanges beast for beast, then both it and the one exchanged for it is set apart. And if it is any unclean beast of which they do not bring an offering to Yahweh, then he shall present the beast before the priest, and the priest shall value it, whether it is good or spoiled. According to your evaluation, O priest, so it shall be. But if he indeed redeems it, then he shall add one-fifth to your evaluation. And when a man sets his house apart to be set apart to Yahweh, then the priest shall value it, whether it is good or spoiled. As the priest values it, so it stands. And if he who sets it apart does redeem his house, then he shall add one-fifth of the silver of your evaluation to it, and it shall be his. And if a man sets apart to Yahweh a field he owns, then your evaluation shall be according to the seed for it, a homer of barley seed at fifty shekels of silver. And if he sets his field apart from the year of Yovel, according to your evaluation, it stands. But if he sets his field apart after the Yovel, then the priest shall reckon to him the silver due according to the years that remain till the year of Yovel, and it shall be deducted from your evaluation. And if he who sets the field apart ever wishes to redeem it, then he shall add one-fifth of the silver of your evaluation to it, and it shall be his. And if he does not redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it is no longer redeemed. But the field, when it is released in the Yovel, is set apart to Yahweh as a dedicated field to be the possession of the priest. And if a man sets apart to Yahweh a field which he has bought, which is not the field of his possession, then the priest shall reckon to him the amount of your evaluation up to the year of Yovel, and he shall give your evaluation on that day set apart to Yahweh. In the year of Yovel the field returns to him from whom he bought it, to him whose is the possession of the land. And all your evaluations are to be according to the shekel of the set-apart place, twenty geras to the shekel. However, a firstborn of the beast which is firstborn to Yahweh, no man sets it apart, whether bull or sheep, it belongs to Yahweh. And if among the unclean beast, then he shall ransom it according to your evaluation, and shall add one-fifth to it. And if it is not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your evaluation. However, whatever a man lays under ban for Yahweh of all that he has, man and beast, or the field of his possession, is not sold or redeemed. Whatever is laid under ban is most set apart to Yahweh. No one under the ban among men is ransomed, but shall certainly be put to death. And all the tithes of the land, of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, belongs to Yahweh. It is set apart to Yahweh. If a man indeed redeems any of his tithes, he adds one-fifth to it. And the entire tithes of the herd, and of the flock, all that passes under the rod, the tenth one, is set apart to Yahweh. He does not inquire whether it is good or spoiled, nor does he exchange it. And if he exchanges it at all, then both it and the one exchanged for it are set apart. It is not redeemed. These are the commands which Yahweh commanded Moshe for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai. 1. Does Yahweh have a command for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai? 2. Does Yahweh have a command for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai? 3. Does Yahweh have a command for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai? 4. Does Yahweh have a command for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai?