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Shevat 1, 5764 / January
24, 2004
Shevat 1, 5767 / January
20, 2007
Shevat 1, 5770 / January
16, 2010
Shevat 1, 5773 / January
12, 2013
Tevet 28, 5776 / January
9, 2016
Ki-tik’tzor
/ When You Reap
SCRIPTURES should be read first
(Hosea 10:12) “Sow with a view to
righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground,
for it is time to seek Yahweh until He comes to rain righteousness on you.”
(Psalm 140:12-13) “I
know that Yahweh will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the
poor. Surely the righteous will give thanks to Your name; the upright will dwell
in Your presence.”
(Deuteronomy 24:19-22) After a season of labor, when the crops are
ready to harvest, a farmer must still realize that God brings forth bread from
the earth, and creates the fruit of the tree: his prosperity is from God, and it
is entrusted to him to share with the poor.
We will be judged according to our use of that with which God has
prospered us. It is put in our control as a test of our service.
(V.19) “When you reap your
harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go
back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow, in
order that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.”
Wheat
field Gathering sheaves
 
Thrashing (to separate grain from
pods) Winnowing (to remove chaff)
 
From
www.paulnoll.com/china
(V.20) “When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs
again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow.”
Olive trees
Olive trees on
the Mount of Olives in Israel
 
From
www.lighthouse123.com/id33.htm From
www.thefigtree.com/olives.htm
Growth Habits:
The olive is an evergreen tree growing to 50 ft. in height with a spread of
about 30 ft. Olives are long-lived with a life expectancy of 500 years. The
trees are also tenacious, easily sprouting back even when chopped to the ground.
Fruit:
The olive fruit is a green drupe, becoming generally blackish-purple when fully
ripe. A few varieties are green when ripe and some turn a shade of copper brown.
The cultivars vary considerably in size, shape, oil-content and flavor. The
shapes range from almost round to oval or elongated with pointed ends. Raw
olives contain an alkaloid that makes them bitter and unpalatable. A few
varieties are sweet enough to be eaten after sun drying.
Harvest:
Olive fruits that are to be processed as green olives are picked while they are
still green but have reached full size. They can also be picked for processing
at any later stage up through full ripeness.
Curing: There are several classical
ways of curing olives. A common method is the lye-cure process in which green or
near-ripe olives are soaked in a series of lye solutions for a period of time to
remove the bitter principle and then transferred to water and finally a mild
saline solution. For California canned commercial olives, black olives are
identical to green olives. The black color is obtained by exposure to air after
lye extraction and has nothing to do with ripeness.
(From
www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/olive.html )
Luke 12
God’s
order is: we are to serve Him first, then He will provide all of our needs for
serving Him, and we are to work to justify that which is provided for us. This
is quite contrary to popular thinking – that we work to create gain, and when we
are satisfied from our own provision, we may then give God part of our time and
resources.
(V.13) Someone said to Yeshua, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family
inheritance with me.” This does not seem like an unreasonable request. But
note: He was asking the “teacher” to teach his brother – not himself! Our
responsibility is to learn to serve faithfully with that which God entrusts to
us.
(V.15)
Yeshua said, “Beware,
and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an
abundance does his life consist of his possessions.”
(V.40-44) When Yeshua returns, those who have learned to be faithful in serving
Him with all that has been entrusted to their care – they will be blessed, with
eternal possessions put in their care!
(V.48)
More will be required of those who have had more entrusted to them. In other
words, riches bring greater responsibility. Desiring to be rich brings many
temptations and snares (1 Timothy 6:9). Those who are rich are admonished about
trusting in their riches, about conceit, and about generosity, “storing
up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they
may take hold of that which is life indeed.”
(1 Timothy 6:17-19).
We are
to be wise, and store up for natural times of “famine”. Those who live by
farming, and other trades with seasonal income, need to budget their income for
a year.
“Go
to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise, which, having no chief,
officer or ruler, prepares her food in the summer, and gathers her provision in
the harvest” (Proverbs 6:6-8).
However, we are not to put “working for increase” first while we are younger, so
that we may retire early to enjoy a life of leisure. Even the idea of building a
nest-egg to have time to serve God later is contrary to God’s instruction of
serving Him first while we are young.
“Remember also your Creator in
the days of your youth”
(Ecclesiastes 12:1).
To seek
increase by cheating in trade is an abomination to Yahweh. This includes
overcharging, and exaggerating the condition or value of something being sold.
It is focusing on personal increase, rather than serving God, and will
ultimately bring personal decrease through God’s judgment.
*
following commentary incomplete *
(V.25:1-3)
(V.5-10)
When a married man dies without offspring, his brother is required to take his
wife, and raise up offspring in the name of the deceased.
“Then
Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother's wife, and perform your duty as a
brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother’
” (Gen 38:8).
A priest may
not marry his deceased brother’s wife, because he is forbidden to marry a widow
(Leviticus 21:14). He must perform the Halitzah Ritual, which releases a
widow from marrying her deceased husband’s brother (see Mishnah: Sanhedrin 2:1).
(V.11-12)
This is about fair judgment in a court, not
literally cutting off a hand in retribution. One who causes embarrassment is
subject to payment of monetary penalty to victim. In this case, the price is
established by God as the value of a hand: if you cause such embarrassment with
your hand, you pay the price (value) of a hand.
(V.13-16)
(V.17-20)
Readings:
Reader 1*
Amen
19
"When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the
field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the
orphan, and for the widow, in order that Yahweh your God may bless you in all
the work of your hands. 20 "When you beat your olive tree, you shall
not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for
the widow. 21 "When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall
not go over it again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the
widow. 22 "And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land
of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.
Reader 2*
Amen
25:1
"If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide
their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, 2
then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then
make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes
according to his guilt. 3 "He may beat him forty times but no more,
lest he beat him with many more stripes than these, and your brother be degraded
in your eyes.
Reader 3*
Amen
4
"You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing. 5 "When brothers
live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased
shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband's brother
shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a
husband's brother to her. 6 "And it shall be that the first-born whom
she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be
blotted out from Israel.
Reader 4*
Amen
7
"But if the man does not desire to take his brother's wife, then his brother's
wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, 'My husband's brother
refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to
perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.' 8 "Then the elders of
his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, 'I do
not desire to take her,' 9 then his brother's wife shall come to him
in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his
face; and she shall declare, 'Thus it is done to the man who does not build up
his brother's house.' 10 "And in Israel his name shall be called,
'The house of him whose sandal is removed.'
Reader 5*
Amen
11
"If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of
one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking
him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, 12 then you shall
cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.
Reader 6*
Amen
13
"You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a large and a small. 14
"You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small.
15 "You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just
measure, that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives
you. 16 "For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts
unjustly is an abomination to Yahweh your God.
Reader 7*
Amen
17
"Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt,
18 how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the
stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God.
19 "Therefore it shall come about when Yahweh your God has given you
rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which Yahweh your God gives
you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from
under heaven; you must not forget.
Hosea 10:12
Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in
accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek
Yahweh until He comes to rain righteousness on you.
Psalm 140 (To
be sung.) For the choir director. A Psalm of David.
1. From men of greed and violence, Yahweh my soul release;
They evil in their hearts devise, And wars they would increase.
2. As keen as any serpent’s fangs So sharp their tongues they make,
And underneath their lips there hides The venom of a snake.
3. Guard me from men of violence, Yahweh, from lawless force;
Their purpose is to bring me down, To overthrow my course.
4. The proud hid traps and cords for me; They have a secret net
Along the wayside spread for me, And snares for me they set.
5. But I have said unto Yahweh, “In truth You are my God.”
O Yahweh, hear my voice when I In supplication bow.
6. My Lord, Yahweh, He is for me Salvation’s strength and stay;
He is the cover for my head When comes the battle day.
7. Grant me, Yahweh, that wicked men See their desire draw nigh.
And do not help them in their plots To lift themselves on high.
8. As for the head of all those men Who have surrounded me,
By all the mischief of their lips Let them now covered be.
9. Let burning coals upon them fall; To flames let them be cast,
And in the deepest pits from which They cannot rise at last.
10. Let no the slanderer on earth Enjoy security;
Let evil hunt the violent And smite relentlessly.
11. I know that Yahweh will maintain The cause of those oppressed;
He will defend the right of those By poverty distressed.
12. And then the righteous to Your Name Their thanks will surely give;
And they that upright are in heart Shall in Your presence live.
Luke 12:13-48
13
And someone in the crowd said to Him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the
family inheritance with me." 14 But He said to him, "Man, who
appointed Me a judge or arbiter over you?" 15 And He said to them,
"Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one
has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions."
16
And He told them a parable, saying, "The land of a certain rich man was very
productive. 17 "And he began reasoning to himself, saying, 'What
shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?' 18 "And he
said, 'This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones,
and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 'And I will say
to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your
ease, eat, drink and be merry."' 20 "But God said to him, 'You fool!
This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have
prepared?'
21
"So is the man who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
22 And He said to His disciples, "For this reason I say to you, do
not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat; nor for your body, as to
what you shall put on. 23 "For life is more than food, and the body
than clothing. 24 "Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor
reap; and they have no storeroom nor barn; and yet God feeds them; how much more
valuable you are than the birds! 25 "And which of you by being
anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span? 26 "If then you
cannot do even a very little thing, why are you anxious about other matters?
27 "Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin;
but I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of
these. 28 "But if God so arrays the grass in the field, which is
alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He
clothe you, O men of little faith! 29 "And do not seek what you shall
eat, and what you shall drink, and do not keep worrying. 30 "For all
these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that
you need these things. 31 "But seek for His kingdom, and these things
shall be added to you. 32 "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your
Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. 33 "Sell your
possessions and give to charity; make yourselves purses which do not wear out,
an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys. 34 "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also. 35
"Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps alight. 36 "And be like
men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so
that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks. 37
"Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on the alert when he comes;
truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at
the table, and will come up and wait on them. 38 "Whether he comes in
the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those
slaves. 39 "And be sure of this, that if the head of the house had
known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to
be broken into. 40 "You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming
at an hour that you do not expect." 41 And Peter said, "Lord, are You
addressing this parable to us, or to everyone else as well?" 42 And
the Lord said, "Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master
will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper
time? 43 "Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when
he comes. 44 "Truly I say to you, that he will put him in charge of
all his possessions. 45 "But if that slave says in his heart, 'My
master will be a long time in coming,' and begins to beat the slaves, both men
and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; 46 the master of that
slave will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour he does not
know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
47 "And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready
or act in accord with his will, shall receive many lashes, 48 but the
one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive
but few. And from everyone who has been given much shall much be required; and
to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.
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