Parashat Beha’alotcha, Are you walking in God’s ways?

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This week’s Parashah, Parashat Beha’alotcha, Bamidbar / Numbers 8:1-9:14
God commands Moshe to cleanse the Cohanim (Priests) for service in the Mishkhan (Tabernacle) in 8:6
.  Sprinkling purifying water, shaving their entire bodies, and washing their cloths, they will be clean
(8:7).  An offering is made in the blood of a bull for sin and a grain offering
mixed with oil (8:8).  Then the Cohanim were presented before God and before the
people (8:9) as a wave offering and they then were qualified to perform the service
before the Lord (8:11).  Scripture goes on to say that the Lord will take the
Levites instead of every first born of Yisrael drawing a parallel with the Passover and the first born dying (
8:16
).  The Lord then spoke to Moshe instructing the Children of Yisrael to observe the Pesach (Passover)
festival saying that the Pesach festival is so important even a person who has touched a dead person and become unclean must still
observe the festival (9:9).  While studying these scriptures, it is interesting
to note that the Hebrew text does not literally say touching a “dead person” as the English text implies.  The text
says 9:10 daber el-benei yisrael lemor ish ish ki-yihye
tame lanefesh
o vederekh rekhoka lakhem o ledoroteikhem veasa fesakh laadonai:
meaning “unclean for
the soul/life” and not a “dead body.”  What can we understand about God’s holy festival that is
so significant even if one becomes unclean by reason of the “life of a person” they still need to observe the
Pesach (Passover) Festival?
Read More here.

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Duane D. Miller received his Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. Degree in Chemical Engineering from The University of Akron Ohio. He is currently a Chemical Engineering Researcher. Duane’s research expertise has focused upon functional materials development for the control, conversion, and release of process gases in Energy production technologies. His R&D interests include computational chemistry, developing novel technologies for converting biomass to fuels and studying their fundamental interactions during the chemical conversion process. His past experience includes sorbent development for pre- and post-combustion CO2 and SO2 capture, selective absorption of H2S from methane streams, O2 capture for oxy-fuel combustion, photocatalytic reduction of alcohols, NOx reduction catalysis, the development of oxygen carriers to combust fossil fuels (CH4 and coal) for the chemical looping combustion processes, and the extraction of rare earth elements using patent pending sorbents. His research expertise has focused on operando-characterization using Infrared, Raman, and UV-Vis spectroscopy to observe the nature of the catalytic active sites and reaction intermediates under realistic reaction conditions, allowing direct correlation of molecular/electronic structures with catalyst performance during Gas-Solid / Liquid-Solid Adsorption and Photocatalytic Processes with real time online analysis of reaction products using ICP-MS and mass spectrometry. His current work involves a multi-disciplinary approach to developing, understanding, and improving the catalytic gasification of coal and methane, high temperature chemical looping combustion, and the catalytic decomposition and gasification of biomass and coal using novel microwave reactor.​ He has been studying the Hebrew Scriptures and the Torah for 20+ years and sharing what he has learned. The studies developed for MATSATI.COM are freely to be used by everyone, to God be the Glory!