June 14, 2025: Torah Portion Parashat Beha'alotecha - "When You Set Up"

In this study, we will explore the Torah Portion Beha'alotecha - "When You Set Up"

• Torah Portion: Numbers 8:1-12:16

• Haftarah: Zechariah 2:14-4:7

• Brit Chadashah (New Testament): 1Corinthians 10:6-13; Revelation 11:1-19

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Beha'alotecha - "When You Set Up"

📖 Torah Portion: Numbers 8:1-12:16

 In this week's parashah, the LORD first gives instructions about how to light the seven lamps of the menorah within the sanctuary (inner chamber) of the Mishkan.

It begins:

The menorah was the place of holy fire and light within the Mishkan (Tabernacle). This holy lampstand was elaborately fashioned out of a single solid piece of gold. Each of the menorah's seven branches was intricately engraved with decorative knobs, cups, and flower-like figures, and pure olive oil was used to illuminate its flames.

According to the Torah, ADONAI Himself made the menorah, based on Numbers 8:4b: "According to the pattern that the LORD had shown Moses, so He (ADONAI) made the lampstand."

The wicks of the menorah were bent toward the middle as if to accentuate the shamash (central) wick.

It is no coincidence that Operation "Rising Lion" was launched this week, as Israel preemptively struck Iranian nuclear sites, in the week we study Parashat Beha’alotecha, a parashah filled with divine messages for our time!

God commands Aaron the High Priest to light the Menorah — “beha’alotecha,” to set it up, to raise the flame, until it rises on its own. This isn’t just about lighting candles. It’s about igniting a nation so that it rise like a lion, into its destiny, into the fulfillment of the plans and purposes ADONAI has for the Nation of Israel to fulfill, for such a time as this!

Operation "Rising Lion" comes from Numbers 23:24:

"The people rise like a lioness; they rouse themselves like a lion that does not rest till it devours its prey and drinks the blood of its victims.”

Israel is being stirred up like a lion, it's awakening, it's being ignited by the fire of the RUACH HA'KODESH (Holy Spirit) to their need of ADONAI in their lives! That they cannot rely only upon themselves and their military capabilities. No! They must rely on Someone bigger than themselves - the only True Living ELOHIM, who neither slumbers nor sleeps but watches over Israel, and watches over His Word to perform it!

"indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you— The LORD is your shade at your right hand;"

Psalm 121:4-5

The partial blindness that Apostle Paul (Rabbi Shaul) talks about is starting to come off of the people:

"For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove godlessness from Jacob." Romans 11:25-26

ADONAI has promised that He will remove godlessness from Jacob (Israel), for His Namesake! To make Israel a holy nation, a royal priesthood to proclaim the praises of Him who called Israel out of darkness into His wonderful light! (1 Peter 2:9) HalelluYAH!

The Dedication of the Levites:

Much in the same manner, as the Parashah continues with the consecration of the Levites, Moses then gathered the Levites together in order to purify them for their avodah (service) at the Mishkan (Tabernacle).

This is how the Levites were purified:

1. They were sprinkled with water mixed with the ashes of the red heifer and then immersed in a mikveh (a ritual bath containing flowing water). This was to purify them from impurity from contact with the dead.

2. The hair on their bodies was completely shaved off (to take the place of the leper who was purified from leprosy.

3. The Israelites were called to the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and the firstborn among them performed a ceremony by laying their hands on the heads of the Levites (transferring the role of the firstborn to the Levites).

4. Aaron the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) then lifted each Levite up as a wave offering before the LORD. Each Levite was literally picked up off the ground and waved up, down, left, right, etc., by the High Priest (with 22,000 Levites, this must have been some undertaking for Aaron!).

5. The Levites then laid their hands on selected bulls and Moses offered offerings (korbanot): a sin offering and an ascending offering.

Notice that the steps of being sprinkled with purifying water, shaving off of all the hair, and being completely immersed in a mikveh (baptized in water) were similar to the ritual for the cleansing of the leper (Leviticus 14:2-32), suggesting that a qualified priest was a "healed leper".

As YESHUA Himself said to the Pharisees who saw Yeshua eating with tax collectors and sinners:

"On hearing this, Yeshua said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

ADONAI will elevate us to the roles and positions He has for us to fulfill, only when we humble ourselves, recognizing the fact that we are sinners, in desperate need of Him! In fact, we can do NOTHING without HIM!

Pesach Sheini:

As you know, on the day before the Exodus from Egypt, every Israelite offered a lamb as a Pesach (Passover) sacrifice - to God. Now, a year later, the LORD instituted Passover as one of the yearly mo'edim (appointed feasts) by saying:

"The children of Israel shall keep the Passover at its appointed season. On the fourteenth day of this month (i.e., Nisan 14), at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its rules you shall keep it"

Numbers 9:2-3

Before the Israelites celebrated the Passover, however, a group of men who were responsible for carrying Joseph's coffin (and were therefore unclean because of their contact with the dead), asked Moses how they could partake of the ceremony, since under the laws of Passover, they were unfit for the Seder.

Moses inquired of the LORD, who then instituted Pesach Sheini ("Second Passover"). This second day would be exactly a month later (on Iyyar 14) when all those who missed the first Passover would be required to eat the korban Pesach (Passover lamb) with bitter herbs and unleavened bread in memory of the Exodus from Egypt.

The Cloud over the Mishkan (Tabernacle):

Parasha Beha’alotecha also recounts how the Jewish people begin to move forward in formation, with the Ark of the Covenant leading them. The cloud of ADONAI rests above them by day, and fire guides them by night.

It’s a parashah of motion, purpose, and divine protection, exactly what we are witnessing now, as the people of Israel move with determination and clarity through the greatest threats of our time!

A prophetic midrash (short message) by Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook, who was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British "Mandatory Palestine", during this very parashah in 1981, addressed the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in Iraq — also carried out by the Israeli Air Force in a bold preemptive strike.

With holy conviction, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda declared:

“This operation is a sanctification of God’s name in the world. Just as the lighting of the Menorah in the Mishkan represented the spreading of divine light and truth, so too the act of protecting Jewish life in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) — with clarity, with courage, with divine purpose — is itself a form of light. It is our sacred duty. This is not politics. This is prophecy unfolding.”

And he ends with “And remember that it is He (God) who gives you the strength to wage war.”

This final statement in Rabbi Kook's speech is the perfect segue into the next part of this Parashah: The blowing the Shofar in Times of War:

The LORD then instructed Moses to make two silver trumpets to be used to summon the camp to attention. The kohanim (priests) used different sounds to signal events.

A tekiah (te-KEE-yah) is a straight, unbroken blast, whereas a teruah (te-ROO-ah) is a staccato division of the tekiah into nine rapid-fire notes (alarm).

When both trumpets were blown tekiah, all of Israel were to meet Moses at the entrance of the Mishkan for instructions; If only one trumpet was sounded, then just the leaders were to convene.

When Israel was to decamp and move to another location in the wilderness, both trumpets would blast tekiah-teruah-tekiah.

In cases of battle, the sound of the trumpets would be used sound the alarm and to be remembered before the LORD our God, and rescued from our enemies, according to Numbers 10:9:

"When you go into battle in your own land against an enemy who is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets. Then you will be remembered by the LORD your God and rescued from your enemies."

The trumpets were also used during the appointed feasts and celebrations:

"Also at your times of rejoicing—your appointed festivals and New Moon feasts—you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you before your God. I am the LORD your God.” Numbers10:10

Whenever the Israelites broke camp, the Cloud over the Mishkan (Tabernacle) would ascend as a column and rest over the tribe of Judah. The silver trumpets would then sound for the departure of the camp and everyone would begin mobilizing. When the Kohathites were ready to move the ark and sacred objects, Moses would then say the words:

We are not simply reading about our ancestors this week, we are walking in their footsteps.

Just like Moses, in the midst of a physical war and spiritual battle, we declare:

“Rise up, O LORD! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You.”

The filthiness of Israel is already removed — not by human works, but by the eternal blood of YESHUA HA'MASHIACH, Who already shed His blood for Israel's redemption!

So we command all blindness to be uprooted and removed from their spiritual eyes, and we call forth an illumination in the minds and hearts of all Israel, in order to see the TRUTH of MESSIAH YESHUA! And the TRUTH of YESHUA setting ADONAI's people FREE! Free to choose salvation!

We call forth freedom in seeing the Menorah lit anew in our generation — the eternal flame of Jewish destiny that ADONAI has set forth for His people to fulfill, since before the foundations of this world, burning brightly through the darkness! For where His Light is, darkness cannot stand! (John 1:5)

“I, the LORD, have called you for a righteous purpose, and I will take hold of your hand.

I will keep you and appoint you to be a covenant for the people and a light to the nations, 7to open the eyes of the blind, to bring prisoners out of the dungeon and those sitting in darkness out from the prison house.

8I am the LORD; That is My name!

I will not yield My glory to another or My praise to idols.

9Behold, the former things have happened, and now I declare new things.

Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.” Isaiah 42:6-9

This is not just a theological hope—it is a prophetic urgency. The return of the King of Kings is near. The nations rage, the earth groans, and the Holy Spirit is calling:

“Awake, O Israel! Return to your Redeemer!”

“Unite, O scattered ones! Rebuild the altar together!”

Let the Body of Messiah cry out in unity. Let Judah and Ephraim arise. Let the blindness be broken, and let the glory of YESHUA shine upon all Israel and the nations!

The time is NOW! Pray for Israel's restoration! Pray that Operation "Rising Lion" will awaken them to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, bringing spiritual awakening deep within and causing all Israel to be saved!

"8Hear now, O high priest Joshua, you and your companions seated before you, who are indeed a sign. For behold, I am going to bring My servant, the Branch. 9See the stone I have set before Joshua; on that one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave on it an inscription, declares the LORD of Hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day." Zechariah 3:8-9

We need to stand upon the promises of ADONAI, trusting that the LORD will accomplish His plans and purposes in each and every one of OUR lives! In YESHUA'S MIGHTY NAME!

The portion also recounts the people’s complaints about their hardships, the appointment of seventy elders to assist Moses, and the incident where Miriam speaks against Moses and is afflicted with leprosy.