Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old. (Micah 7:18-20)
The passage in Micah is the subject of an extensive study by Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (The Ramak 1522-1570, born in Safed). Rav Cordovero was regarded as a Torah genius, and one of his seminal works is Tomer Devorah which studies the 13 attributes in association with the 10 sefirot. It is studied during the period of Elul and leading up to the end of Sukkot. Within Judaism it is regarded as a key text that expresses the aspects of the 10 sefirot, the kabbalistic tree of life which is a pattern for man’s communication and understanding of himself and his relationship with the Creator of the Universe and his fellow men.
The studies that follow are based on various sources:
- Tomer Devorah (The Palm Tree of Devorah) – Rabbi Mosh Cordovero
- The Elucidated Tomer Devorah – Rabbi Shmuel Meir Riachi
- The Kabbalah of Forgiveness – Henry Abramson
However, keeping this in mind, some of the questions that have always bothered me are:
- Can we see the 10 sefirot within the context of our understanding of Messiah and the Apostolic writings?
- If they do apply, how do we gain greater insight into the mission of Messiah and our own lives?
So, in addition to the texts above, we’ll also be looking closely at the Sermon on the Mount and other writings from the Apostolic scriptures.
13 Attributes
Tomer Devorah (TD) is rooted in the 13 attributes of mercy that we see expressed by The Holy One, when Moshe is pleading on behalf of the children of Israel after the giving of the Torah and the abomination of the Golden Calf:
So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” (Exodus 34:1-9)
The passage in Micah 7 is directly related to these verses in Exodus.
Each of the aspects of the Micah passage examine the expressions of the attributes of the Holy One so that we are able to examine ourselves in the light of these expressions and consider how we perceive and operate in the world around us towards Our Father in Heaven and our fellow men. Unlike Rabbi Cordovero, as we have the additional “resource” in the revealed attributes as embodied by Messiah ben Joseph and can learn through his interpretation, we’ll look at the Sermon on the Mount which declares each of the 13 attributes.
1st Attribute – Who is a GOD like you?
From the outset, we need to reestablish an understanding of the absolute sovereignty of Our Heavenly Father
In the daily prayers, this is expressed through the text of Adon Olam:
Adon O-lam, Asher ma-lach
Be-te-rem Kol Ye-tzir- Niv-rah
Le-et Na-ahso, Ve-chef-tzo Kol
A-zay Me-lech She-mo Nik-rah
Lord of the World, who reigned as King
Before creating everything
And at the moment all was made
Then was His Name as “King” proclaimed.
And after all comes to an end
The Awesome One will be Sovereign
He was and He remains to be
He will remain with majesty.
He is but One and none exist
To equal Him or to assist
Without beginning, without end
Authority belongs to Him.
My Redeemer lives, He is My God
He is My Rock when times are hard
A banner and a safe haven
My portion when I call to Him.
I give my spirit to His hand
When I lie down and I will stand
And with my flesh, my soul will be
I do not fear, the LORD’s with me.
In His Temple, I will sing
He sends us our MESSIAH KING
And in His house rejoice again
Before the Awesome One
Amen
The thoughts expressed by this liturgy move us beyond the framework of there being any equal to our Creator. This includes the Adversary, to whom we attribute far too much power. The example of Pharoah is the epitome our understanding of the “battle” with human agencies that believe that they are the most powerful force in the known world. There may be some pain that we experience (think of all the Israelites including the fathers of the 12 tribes who did not experience the fulfillment of the words of the Holy One to Abraham – Hebrews 11) which may even result in our death because of the bad actors in this world, but Sin is only as powerful as we allow it to be in terms of dominance in our lives, this is our sovereignty in action in concert with the power of Our Heavenly Father. But the strength to sin does not come from us, but from our Creator. It is our responsibility to use that strength for the good of the Olam Hazeh, the world that we reside in, but even if we use it for “ill”, this does not deflect the purposes of the Creator of the Universe, it only deprives us of the goodness that comes from Him and removes us from the Garden in which we were meant to reside.
This is best expressed in the passages of the Exodus, where we see how The Holy One “strengthens” the heart of Pharaoh or consider the story of Balaam.
(Read Exodus 10 and passages preceding and following and Numbers 22-25).
For many, these are difficult passages as they seem to contradict the idea of free choice; in many ways a difficult concept altogether, if we are considering the idea that all our life force comes from the Creator and that with all things being in His control, leads us to conclude that the energy for sin, is also a product of His mercy. We can only really understand this if we examine each situation that we encounter sin, either in our personal day to day dealing with the environment around us or within ourselves and our own personal battles.
Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence. I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD! (Psalms 27:11-14)
Then did something good become for me the source of death? Heaven forbid! Rather, it was sin working death in me through something good, so that sin might be clearly exposed as sin, so that sin through the commandment might come to be experienced as sinful beyond measure. For we know that the Torah is of the Spirit; but as for me, I am bound to the old nature, sold to sin as a slave. I don’t understand my own behavior — I don’t do what I want to do; instead, I do the very thing I hate! Now if I am doing what I don’t want to do, I am agreeing that the Torah is good. But now it is no longer “the real me” doing it, but the sin housed inside me. For I know that there is nothing good housed inside me — that is, inside my old nature. I can want what is good, but I can’t do it! For I don’t do the good I want; instead, the evil that I don’t want is what I do! But if I am doing what “the real me” doesn’t want, it is no longer “the real me” doing it but the sin housed inside me. So I find it to be the rule, a kind of perverse “torah,” that although I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me! For in my inner self I completely agree with God’s Torah; but in my various parts, I see a different “torah,” one that battles with the Torah in my mind and makes me a prisoner of sin’s “torah,” which is operating in my various parts. What a miserable creature I am! Who will rescue me from this body bound for death? Thanks be to God [, he will]! — through Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord! To sum up: with my mind, I am a slave of God’s Torah; but with my old nature, I am a slave of sin’s “Torah.” Romans 7:13-25
The similarity between these passages is that the initial energy for the direction that we move in comes from our physicality, whether that be the will to move, the thought within us combined with the will to move. We have become the steward of the breath of the Creator and given the responsibility to guard that breath within us (the neshama). This essence can be used for good (tov) of for evil (ra), but from the Creator’s point of view “all things work to the good (tov)”
Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:26-30)
Even within this passage, Paul is expressing the principle of the sovereignty of the Holy One, but also recognising that if we are aligned to the Spirit of the Holy One we will be at odds to our surroundings where they are unwilling to be aligned to His Will including our own animal desires outside of the instruction of Torah written on our hearts.
At the centre of our thoughts regarding the sovereignty of Our Creator, we can also recognise that in the words of the Master, who GOD calls “His Son” – That is the one who fully reflects Him; in the opening stanza of the Sermon on the Mount, echoing the words of his earthly father from previous generations, David Ha Melech, in Psalm 1.
Matthew 5:3-12
3 “How blessed are the poor in spirit! for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
4 “How blessed are those who mourn! for they will be comforted.
5 “How blessed are the meek! for they will inherit the Land!
6 “How blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness! for they will be filled.
7 “How blessed are those who show mercy! for they will be shown mercy.
8 “How blessed are the pure in heart! for they will see God.
9 “How blessed are those who make peace! for they will be called sons of God.
10 “How blessed are those who are persecuted because they pursue righteousness! for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
11 “How blessed you are when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of vicious lies about you because you follow me!
12 Rejoice, be glad, because your reward in heaven is great — they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.
How blessed are those who reject the advice of the wicked, don’t stand on the way of sinners or sit where scoffers sit! Their delight is in Adonai’s Torah; on his Torah they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams – they bear their fruit in season, their leaves never wither, everything they do succeeds. Not so the wicked, who are like chaff driven by the wind. For this reason, the wicked won’t stand up to the judgment, nor will sinners at the gathering of the righteous. For Adonai watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked is doomed. Psalms 1:1-6
Exercise
Q1. When have you felt that the circumstances that you are experiencing day to day do not testify to the sovereignty of the Creator?
Q2. If you consider the situation differently, acknowledging the sovereignty of the Creator in the phrase “Who is a GOD like you?”, how does this change your perception of the situation?
Q3. How does it change you?
Q4. How can you change the situation by changing your perception of the sovereignty of the Creator.
Q.5 Consider this last question in the context of the words of the Master in the Sermon on the Mount.
“You have heard that our fathers were told, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you not to stand up against someone who does you wrong. On the contrary, if someone hits you on the right cheek, let him hit you on the left cheek too! If someone wants to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well! And if a soldier forces you to carry his pack for one mile, carry it for two! When someone asks you for something, give it to him; when someone wants to borrow something from you, lend it to him. “You have heard that our fathers were told, ‘Love your neighbor — and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! Then you will become children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun shine on good and bad people alike, and he sends rain to the righteous and the unrighteous alike. What reward do you get if you love only those who love you? Why, even tax-collectors do that! And if you are friendly only to your friends, are you doing anything out of the ordinary? Even the Goyim do that! Therefore, be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
(Matthew 5:38-48)
MBM UK Family 