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גש וי

PARASHAH VAYIGASH - HE APPROACHED

TORAH – B’RESHEET (GEN) 44:18 – 47:27

HAFTORAH – YECHEZK’EL (EZE) 37:15-28

JEWISH LAW (HALAKHA) CONSIDERS A REUNION TO BE SPECIAL EVENT

When meeting a friend or family member you have not seen for approximately 30 days you say the Shehcheyanu blessing, “Blessed are you, O L-RD our G-d, King of the Universe, Who gave us life, sustained us, and brought us to this season (moment of time). ref: Hichot B”rachot 225:1 When meeting a friend or family member you have not seen for approximately 12 months you say, “Blessed are you, O L-RD our G-d, King of the Universe, Who brings back life from the dead.” ref: Shulchan Aruch

B’resheet (Gen) 44:18 גש אליו יהודה, יח וי

18. Then Y’hudah approached (גש .… Yosef (וי

גש ויStrong's Ref. # 5066 Romanized nagash - to be or come (causatively, bring) near The meaning is to approach carefully, slowly

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YECHEZK’EL (EZE) 37 (NOTE THAT THIS IS THE LAST OF EZEKIEL’S “ACTION” SERMONS) 15 The word of ADONAI came to me: 16 “You, human being ( אדם-בן ), take one stick and write on it, ‘For Y’hudah and those joined with him (among) the people of Isra’el.’ Next, take another stick and write on it, ‘For Yosef, the stick of Efrayim, and all the house of Isra’el who are joined with him.’

Why did G-d refer to Ezekiel as ben adam בן-אדם “son of man”? Note that this phrase is used

over 80 times in the book of Ezekiel.

17 Finally, bring them together into a single stick, so that they become one in your hand.

“Bring them together” Ref: Tehillim (Psa) 133:1, 1 Cor 1:10

18 When your people ask you what all this means, 19 tell them that ADONAI ELOHIM says this: ‘I will take the stick of Yosef, which is in the hand of Efrayim, together with the tribes of Isra’el who are joined with him, and put them together with the stick of Y’hudah and make them a single stick, so that they become one in my hand.’

Yesha’yahu (Isa) 9 20 (21) M'nasheh devours Efrayim; and Efrayim, M'nasheh; while together they oppose Y'hudah. Even after all this, his anger remains, his upraised hand still threatens.

So the prophecy goes on to envisage a future that will not merely involve the restoration of the survivors of Judah, but will constitute a reconstruction of the original nation. In a literal sense, of course, this did not happen in this way. The dispersion of the northern tribes by the Assyrians after the destruction of Samaria in 721 was never really reversed in the same way that the exiles of Judah returned from Babylon after the edict of Cyrus in 538. But Ezekiel’s point, again, is not so much ethnic and geographical, but theological, or perhaps we might say ecclesiological. He is determined to insist that the future of G-d’s people is a future for one people. One G-d, one people, one covenant. The Bible Speaks Today – The Message of Ezekiel

NAU Ephesians 4:4-6 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one G-d and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

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Such a vision on the one hand anticipates also the insistence of Paul that G-d’s ultimate purpose is ‘one new humanity’, of believing Gentiles and Jews, united through the cross of Christ (the Messiah) and acceptable to G-d. And on the other hand, it excludes any form of ‘two-covenant’ theory which wants to suggest that G-d has somehow got a double agenda running in his saving purposes—one covenant with national Israel, and another with Gentile Christians. As I have argued elsewhere, this ‘two-covenant’ view ‘utterly subverts Paul’s claim that the very heart of the gospel was that in it G-d had created one new people … that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of the Messiah Jesus (Yeshua) (Eph. 3:6)’. Nothing less than this great declaration will satisfy the chords of Ezekiel’s great symphonic prophecy of one people under one Lord. The Bible Speaks Today – The Message of Ezekiel

.NAU Z'kharyah (Zec) 11 7 So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock.

20 The sticks on which you write are to be in your hand as they watch. 21 Then say to them that ADONAI ELOHIM says: ‘I will take the people of Isra’el from among the nations where they have gone and gather them from every side and bring them back to their own land.

22 I will make them one nation (גוי) in the land, on the mountains of Isra’el; and one king

will be king for all of them. They will no longer be two nations, and they will never again be divided into two kingdoms.

Why was the word nation (גוי goy) used and not people (עם ahm)?

Hint: Think about the term of “a believer”. Is there a really a difference if you are a believer who is an American OR an American who is a believer?

Ref: B’resheet (Gen) 12:2

23 “‘They will never again defile themselves with their idols, their detestable things, or any of their transgressions; but I will save them from all the places where they have been living and sinning; and I will cleanse them, so that they will be my people, and I will be their G-d. 24 My servant David will be king over them, and all of them will have one shepherd; they will live by my rulings and keep and observe my regulations.

“all of them will have one shepherd “ Who is this “one shepherd”? Ref: Yochanan (John) 10:16

“they will live by my rulings” How do you live by G-d’s rulings? Ref: Amos 3:3

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25 They will live in [on] the land I gave to Ya‘akov my servant, where your ancestors lived; they will live there –– they, their children, and their grandchildren, forever; and David my servant will be their leader forever.

כה וישבו על-הארץ, the land on and they will live

NAU Ezekiel 37 25 "And they shall live on the land

Yochanan (John) 15 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would have loved its own. But because you do not belong to the world- on the contrary, I have picked you out of the world- therefore the world hates you.

* Note that Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (June 20 1808 – December 31 1888) stated that the returning ancestors will live on the land while the disobedient ancestors lived in the land.

Cogan, L., Weiss, J.,(2002). Teaching Haftarah,

What is the difference? Hint: Think of living or dying.

26 I will make a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant. I will give to them, increase their numbers, and set my sanctuary among [in] them forever.

י בתוכם לעולם. קדש י את-מ ונתת כו

in them

“increase their numbers” Ref: Acts 2:41, 47 27 My home will be with them [upon them]; I will be their G-d, and they will be my people.

י עליהם, שכנ כז והיה מ upon them

28 The nations will know that I am ADONAI, who sets Isra’el apart as holy, when my sanctuary is with [in] them forever.’”

י בתוכם, לעולם. קדש היות מ ב כח

in them

“The nations will know …” Why does it matter to ADONAI what other nations think?

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Ephesians 2 13 But now, you who were once far off have been brought near through the shedding of the Messiah’s blood. 14 For he himself is our shalom ––he has made us both one and has broken down the m’chitzah which divided us 15 by destroying in his own body the enmity occasioned by the Torah, with its commands set forth in the form of ordinances. He did this in order to create in union with himself from the two groups a single new humanity and thus make shalom, 16 and in order to reconcile to G-d both in a single body by being executed on a stake as a criminal and thus in himself killing that enmity. 17 Also, when he came, he announced as Good News shalom to you far off and shalom to those nearby, 18 news that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers. On the contrary, you are fellow–citizens with G-d’s people and members of G-d’s family. 20 You have been built on the foundation of the emissaries and the prophets, with the cornerstone being Yeshua the Messiah himself. 21 In union with him the whole building is held together, and it is growing into a holy temple in union with the Lord. 22 Yes, in union with him, you yourselves are being built together into a spiritual dwelling–place for G-d!