The Greatest Revelation of God
Yael Eckstein | May 10, 2022
Do not profane my holy name, for I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites. I am the LORD, who made you holy and who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the LORD. —Leviticus 22:32-33
Each week in synagogue, Jews read through the Torah from Genesis to Deuteronomy. This week’s Torah portion for this week is Emor, which means “speak,” from Leviticus 21:1–24:23.
As a Jew who spends a lot of my time engaged with Christian friends and supporters of Israel and the Jewish people, I think a lot about the role of the Jewish people in the world. Isaiah said that we are to be a “light for the Gentiles” and the nations (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, 60:3). He called the future Temple in Jerusalem a “house of prayer for all nations” (Isaiah 56:7).
Think about that. The Jews are less than half of 1 percent of the world’s population. Doesn’t that mean that we Jews will be greatly outnumbered in our own Temple?
The answer is yes. Ironically, Isaiah is telling us that the purpose of the Jews is not for the Jews. Our mission is to reveal God to the whole world. And nothing reveals God in today’s world like Jewish history. When God keeps His biblical promises, as He has, and Jewish history unfolds in miraculous ways, as it has, the truth of God and the Bible are clear for all to see.
The Greatest Revelation of God
The idea that God is revealed to the world through the history of Israel is found in this week’s Torah portion. We read, “Do not profane my holy name, for I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites. I am the LORD, who made you holy and who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the LORD.”
The Hebrew for “I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites” is ve’nikdashti betoch b’nei Yisrael, which literally means, “I will be made holy within the people of Israel.” What God is really saying here is that His own holiness and greatness is revealed for all to see through the Jewish people.
How does this work? As the verse continues, “I am the LORD who made you holy and who brought you out of Egypt.” In other words, the miraculous history of the nation of Israel is the greatest revelation of God there is.