Don’t Follow Your Heart
From the day my wife slipped it on my finger, I have cherished my wedding band. The simple gold band on my hand has an outsized impact on reorienting my life to its most important human relationship, my wife.
When work, children, finances, and health crises confuse my priorities, the ring’s presence returns me to the priority I adopted with a public “I do.” The band’s ability to signal “Taken!” also protects me from those who might otherwise tempt me away from my wife into another relationship. It is amazing how this one simple object helps safeguard my marriage relationship.
The same is true of our relationship with God.
We find ourselves under constant pressure to let someone or something other than God be at the center of our lives. When this happens, catastrophe ensues because no other one or thing can stabilize and bring blessing to our lives. Therefore, God gave Israel a simple object to protect their relationship with Him – the gift of tzitzit .
Tzitzit (pronounced “tseet-tseet”) are the tassels God commanded Israel to place at the corner of their garments. Like a wedding band, they were given to protect Israel from threats to their relationship with God. The protective purpose of tzitziot (plural form) becomes clear as we study the Scriptures to see their unique design and the context in which they were given.
The command to wear tzitzit appears in the context of spiritual failure and rebellion against God. The instructions conclude the weekly Torah reading Sh’lach l’Cha (“send out for yourselves”), which begins in Numbers 13:1. This is the account of the 12 men sent to spy out the goodness of the land to which God was bringing Israel.
Chapters 13 and 14 record how 10 of these return with a negative report. Israel responds by refusing to go up to take the land. As a result of their rebellion, God bans that generation of military-age men from entering the promised land and consigns them to die while traversing the wilderness for forty years – one year for each day the spies viewed the land.
The message of Numbers 13-14 is straightforward: rebellion against God has disastrous results. This is the context in which God gives the command to wear tzitzit.
Moses confirms this connection through the repetition of one word. The Hebrew word translated “to spy” or “spy out” appears a total of 15 times in the Torah. Of these, 13 are concentrated within Sh’lach l’Cha (Num. 13:1-15:41). The word appears 12 times in the story of the spies and once in reference to tzitzit, thereby creating a verbal connection between the two.
Tzitzit’s unique design also highlights their protective nature. The blue cord included in each tzitzit ties it directly to God’s presence among His people in the tabernacle. The Hebrew word translated “blue” appears 40 times in the Torah. The first 39 uses always and only refer to its use in the tabernacle and the High Priest’s garments. The last use is its presence in the tzitzit. The inclusion of this blue cord meant each Israelite man was to wear a visual reminder of God’s presence and his relationship to God.
In Numbers 15:39 God explains how tzitzit can protect from spiritual rebellion: “It shall be a tassel (tzitzit) for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, so as to do them and not follow after (or “spy out”) your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot.”
Not only do tzitzit call to remembrance the need for obedience, they can protect from our greatest threat.
Just as a wedding band can help protect a cherished marriage, tzitzit were designed to protect Israel’s relationship with God by providing a crucial lesson: the real threat to our most cherished relationship is not external, e.g., the pressures of life, or the temptations of those who seek to woo us away. The real threat is internal – the deceitfulness of our own hearts!
It turns out that “follow your heart” is the worst advice we can offer because our unprotected hearts (our reason, emotions, and will) lead to rebellion.
Yet, as wonderful a tool as tzitzit can be in protecting one’s relationship with God, we know from Israel’s ongoing struggle and failure they are not the ultimate solution for Israel or for anyone. But there is good news! In mercy, God promised the permanent solution – a transformed heart under a new covenant through the forgiveness of sin:
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33–34)
Jews and Gentiles can enjoy ultimate protection from rebellion and an idolatrous heart. It comes through trusting in Israel’s promised Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth, the One whose death, burial, and resurrection established the New Covenant.
Written by Dan, LIFE Board Chair
Do you have a physical reminder like tzitzit or a wedding band, to remind you to be true to the One True God?
What things are fighting for your attention that you need to set aside?
In what ways are you “following your heart” instead of God?