#Mt Sinai torah

[yhebrew]

The Spiritual Meaning of Hebrew Months and Tribe Symbolism in Positioning

ISAR’EL – Ordained in Full View since 1948 This study of positioning has been of great interest to me. We will see that each of the Hebrew months is dedicated to a particular tribe. Each tribe has their own personality. How well do they handle the circumstances they find themselves in? They are counted at the beginning of the 40 years and after The Wildness of 40 years. Yeshua was counted at…

[popemoses]

Shavuot/Pentecost

The holiday of Pentecost is the greek name for the Jewish biblical holiday called the “Feast of Weeks” or “Shavuot”. This year it falls on May 25, 2020. It’s a reminder of a few things: The end of the Counting of the Omer The time of the wheat harvest The giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai The reading of the book of Ruth The outpouring of the Holy Spirit The reconciliation of the Tower of…

[sag-dab-sar]

📖 Myth & Sacred Scripture 📖

In Hellenic Polytheism and Mesopotamian Polytheism (and others but I don't want to speak for them) there is no sacred scripture where the words of a God are given to a myth writer and that writing is then declared holy by some form of religious authority.

The idea that myths are the literal actions of the Gods come from a concept of sacred scripture. Sacred meaning the words have holy implications or they have a fundamentally important connection to the divine. This understanding of religious writings is demonstrated in:

Protestant Christianity where the Bible is divinely inspired (usually derived from 1 Timothy 3:16 & 2 Peter 1:12). Additionally, in Trinitarian Christianity Jesus is God making his words in the Gospels the literal words of God.

Islam where the Quran are the words of God given to Mohammad via the angel Gabriel over the course of his life.

Judaism where traditionally the written Torah are the words of God given to Moses at Mt Sinai.

**There are more examples but I'm not going to try and talk about something I did not study.

This pervasive idea of scripture being the words of God embeds itself into a general view of what religion supposedly is because:

Christianity is the largest religion in the world.

Christianity is the dominant religion in English speaking countries, so when we have these discussions in English it tends to have that cultural Christian viewpoint.

Islam is the second largest religion in the world.

Islam considers the Jewish and Christian scriptures to also be given from God, but they have been corrupted in one way or another. This combination can put a mistaken emphasis on sacred scripture being a fundamental aspect of religion.

Even though Judaism is a very small religion the the written Torah is considered part of the Christian Old Testament (first five books). Christians interpret the scripture completely differently but the idea of Moses receiving the Word of God at Mt Sinai continues into Christianity from Judaism.

In many "dead religions" the closest you can come to the "words of the gods" might be the writings of ancient oracles or those who communed directly with spirits & gods. However, in Greece and Mesopotamia there was no centralized religion or continuous tradition to overview and canonize them into sacred scripture. Additionally, those are not usually what people are talking about when they refer to myth.

Myth is extremely important, but mythic literalism is a misstep people make, often due to our preconceived notions of sacred scriptures and their connection to the divine.

-dyslexic not audio proof read-

-I hope this makes sense-

[etz-ashashiyot]

So what’s the modern interpretation of the laws about keeping slaves? I’ve heard that said laws where a lot more kind to slaves then the surrounding nations but, like, it’s still slavery?

Hi anon,

With Pesach coming up, I'm sure that this question is on a lot of people's minds. It's a good question and many rabbanim throughout history have attempted to tackle it. Especially today, with slavery being seen as a moral anathema in most societies (obviously this despite the fact that unfortunately slavery is still a very real human rights crisis all over the world), addressing the parts of the Torah that on the surface seem to condone it becomes a moral imperative.

It's worth noting that the Jewish world overall condemns slavery. In my research for this question, I came across zero modern sources arguing that slavery is totally fine. I'm sure that if you dug deep enough there's some fringe wacko somewhere arguing this, but every group has its batshit fringe.

Here are some sources across the political and religious observance spectrum that explain it better than I could:

Chabad (this article is written by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a wonderful rabbi whose words I have learned deeply over the years. He is one of my favorite rabbis despite not seeing eye to eye with a lot of the Chabad movement)

Conservative (to be clear: this is my movement; it's not actually politically conservative in most shuls, just poorly named. We desperately need to bully them into calling themselves Masorti Olami like the rest of the world. It's [essentially] a liberal traditional egalitarian movement.)

Conservative pt. 2 (different rabbi's take)

Reform (note that this is from the Haberman Institute, which was founded by a Reform rabbi. Link is to a YouTube recording of a recent lecture on the topic.)

Chareidi (this rabbi is an official rabbi of the Western Wall in Israel, so in a word, very frum)

Modern Orthodox

I want to highlight this last one, because it is written by the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Chovevei, which is a progressive Modern Orthodox rabbinical school. They work very hard to read Torah through an authentically Orthodox lens while also maintaining deeply humanist values. As someone who walks a similar (if not identical) balancing act, this particular drash (sermon) spoke very deeply to me, and so I'm reposting it in its entirety**

[Edit: tumblr.hell seems real intent on not letting me do this in my original answer, so I will repost it in the reblogs. Please reblog that version if you're going to. Thanks!]

Something you will probably notice as you work your way through these sources, you'll note that there are substantially more traditional leaning responses. This is because of a major divide in how the different movements view Torah, especially as it pertains to changing ethics over time and modernity. I'm oversimplifying for space, but the differences are as follows:

The liberal movements (Reform, Renewal, Reconstructionist, etc.) view halacha as non-binding and the Torah as a human document that is, nevertheless, a sacred document. I've seen it described as the spiritual diary of our people throughout history. Others view it as divinely inspired, but still essentially and indelibly human.

The Orthodox and other traditional movements view halacha as binding and Torah as the direct word of G-d given to the Jewish people through Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses) on Mt. Sinai. (Or, at a minimum, as a divinely inspired text written and compiled by people that still represents the word of G-d. This latter view is mostly limited to the Conservative and Modern Orthodox movements.)

Because of these differences, the liberal movements are able to address most of these problematic passages by situating them in their proper historical context. It is only the Orthodox and traditional movements that must fully reckon with the texts as they are, and seek to understand how they speak to us in a contemporary context.

As for me? I'm part of a narrow band of traditional egalitarian progressive Jews that really ride that line between viewing halacha as binding and the Torah as divinely given, despite recognizing the human component of its authorship - more a partnership in its creation than either fully human invention or divine fiat. That said, I am personally less interested in who wrote it literally speaking and much more interested in the question of: How can we read Torah using the divinely given process of traditional Torah scholarship while applying deeply humanist values?

Yeshivat Chovevei does a really excellent job of approaching Torah scholarship this way, as does Hadar. Therefore, I'm not surprised that this article captures something I have struggled to articulate: an authentically orthodox argument for change.

[hyperpotamianarch]

Next, I'm going to try and pour out information about Jewish religious literature. To be fair, there are probably way more extensive posts, websites and YouTube videos on this topic, but I chose to talk about it because I've seen some slight misinformation going around. Hope I won't come off as patronizing. Note, I'm writing it to be comprehensible for none-Jews as well as Jews, so I might say a lot of things you already know if you're Jewish.

So, Jewish religious literature can be divided to three main branches: Mikra, Mishnah and Talmud. This is not a completely precise division, nor can it be applied to every Jewish religious book, but it's helpful for the basic books, those considered obligating by Rabbinic Judaism.

Mikra (which, roughly translated from Hebrew, means "something that is read") is the one of those three that is pretty much closed: you can't really write a new Jewish book that'll be considered a part of it. It's also called the Written Torah, and includes the entirety of the Hebrew Bible, AKA Tanakh. In case you're wondering, that includes all books in what Christians call "the Old Testament", only sorted differently and into three categories: Torah - the Pentateuch, Nevi'im (Prophets) - which includes every book named after a person outside of Job, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Neḥemiah, and in addition to those books includes the books of Judges and Kings, and the Ketuvim (Written texts) - which includes all the rest of the books. The order of the books in the Tanakh is as follows (using their English names for convenience, I don't necessarily stand behind those translations): Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Nevi'im: Joshua, Judges, Samuel (1&2), Kings (1&2), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Twelve Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Naḥum, Ḥabakuk, Zephaniah, Ḥaggai, Zechariah, Malachi). Ketuvim: Psalms, Proverbs, Job (transliteration did a number on this one), the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra&Neḥemiah, Chronicles (1&2). Overall, there are 24 books in the Hebrew Bible. It is only later divisions, some of which are outright nonsensical, that made the number into 39.

Those books are ones that are considered to be written using some degree of Divine Inspiration or outright prophecy (which doesn't have to do with knowing the future). Common tradition considers the division of the Tanakh to be between three levels of prophecy, of which the Ketuvim were written in the lowest. As the Written Torah, the entirety of these scriptures is meant to be read (and not repeated by heart). There are occasions where there's a difference between the reading tradition and the writing one - but that's another story. The last books in the Tanakh were written around the 5th Century BCE according to tradition, and it was closed to new additions a couple of decades, perhaps a century or two, later.

The other two branches are both considered parts of the Oral Torah, to varying degrees. You see, according to Jewish tradition, Moshe (Moses) got the Torah in Mt. Sinai in two parts: the Written one (which at the time only included the Pentateuch) and the Oral one, which included explanations on how to actually act upon the commandments in the Written Torah, in addition to deduction laws to be used on the Written Torah (at least according to Rambam, AKA Maimonides). Both the Mishnah and the Talmud, at their core, are based on that. But much of the things said there are things clearly said by Sages and Rabbis from the 1st Century CE onward. How does that work, then?

The answer kind of depends who you ask. But the Orthodox way to look at that is usually that people either have old traditions that were passed down to them, or are using the deduction laws given to Moshe at Mt. Sinai. But I guess all that was a digression, so let's get back on topic.

The Mishnah is called that way after the Hebrew word for repetition. It's supposed to be sturdied this way to be memorized, though it mostly exists as written text nowadays. Back in the time it was codified - the Tana'ic era (10-220 CE, approx.), called that way after the Aramaic word for people who memorize through repetition - there were many versions of traditional laws memorized this way. This stemmed from many different people teaching the same laws, and it ended up being a game of Telephone. Also, it probably needs to be said that while I call those "laws" they weren't usually the bottomline Halachic rules, since it included disagreements and multiple opinions.

The end of the Tana'ic era came when one person, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, composed an authoritative collection of those after studying all the different traditions he knew of. This is what we nowadays call the Mishnah. It's made of 60 tractates- (whisper, whisper Wait, really? Whisper, whisper Huh. All right, then.) I have been informed that the number is actually 63. Who knew? Anyway, those 63 tractates are sorted by topic into 6 orders. Those orders are: Zera'im (seeds, concerns itself with matters related to plants with the odd tractate about liturgy at the start), Mo'ed (occeasion/time, concerns itself with Jewish holidays), Nashim (women, concerns itself with marriage laws in addition to two tractates about oaths and vows), Nezikin (damages, concerns itself with court procedures. Has two miscellaneous tractates that don't make sense there but belong nowhere else), Kodashim (holy things, concerns itself with matters relating to the Temple procedures as well as one tractate about Kashrut and one about heavenly punishments), and Taharot (ritually clean things, I guess? Though this translation is less than accurate. Has to do with - you guessed it - ritual cleanliness). The tractates aren't divided evenly between the orders, and inside of them are sorted by length. The longest tractate is 30 chapters, the shortest is 3. And yes, all of that was supposed to be remembered by heart - possibly only by a number of specific people.

Now, I didn't mention it previously, but there were certain books written that didn't get into the Tanakh - Apocryphal books. Those are not only considered outside the religious canon, but are not to be studied as well - though this might be a little flexible, the bottom line is they can't really be used for anything religious. I'm saying this right now because the same isn't true for Oral traditions that weren't codified in the Mishnah. Some of those were codified in other ways, and can be used to help understand the Mishnah better - which leads us to the Talmud.

Talmud, translated literally from Hebrew, means "study", as in the study of the traditions from the Mishnah. It is a separate book from the Mishanh, but is structured around it. Due to that, there are occasions people will tell you a given quote is from the Talmud when it's actually from the Mishanh - since the Talmud quotes the Mishnah when talking about it. The Talmud usually tries to reason the origin of the opinions in the Mishnah and to delve into the intricacies of those laws: what happens in fringe cases? What about other situations that the Mishnah didn't mention? How does what this specific Tana (rabbi from the Mishnah) says here fits with what he himself said in another place? And such things. The Talmud is, in essence, a recording of centuries of debates and discussions about the Mishnah. Oh, and there are two Talmudim (the plural form of Talmud).

One could say that the Jerusalem Talmud (Yerushalmi) is the equivalent of the oral traditions that didn't get into the Mishnah: it's less studied and considered less obligating than the Babilonian Talmud (Gemara, or Bavli). It still is occasionally quoted and used to study things the Gemara doesn't talk about or doesn't elaborate on. The main difference between the two is where thy were codified - the Yerushalmi is a codification of the study as it was conducted in the land of Israel (mostly in the galillee; the name Yerushalmi is a little misleading), while the Bavli codifies and records the study of Babylon. There's also a different in the language - both are written in Aramaic interladed with Hebrew, but in different dialects. The Yerushalmi was also codified a couple of centuries earlier than the Bavli - the Yerushalmi was codified around 350CE, due to persecutions under the Bizantine empire, while the Bavli was compiled by the 5th century CE.

While those two Talmudim are separate from each other, there is some intersection. Travel between the land of Israel and Babylon wasn't too rare at the time (called Tekufat Ha'Amora'im in Hebrew, the era of the Amora'im. Amora means interpretor or translator in Aramaic), and so you can see rabbis from Babylon mentioned in the Yerushalmi and Rabbis from the land of Israel mentioned in the Bavli. The easiest way to tell the difference is by their title - in Babylon, a rabbi is called "Rav [name]", while in the land of Israel they are called Rabbi. There is a reason to that, but I'm not getting into it yet. In addition, the Bavli regularly talks about how things are done "in the west" - which is the land of Israel, since it's to Babylon's west. As mentioned, the Bavli is the more authoritative of the two, and is the one usually referred to when people say "the Talmud". The Bavli directly discusses 37 of the Mishnah tractates - it nearly doesn't talk at all about the first and last orders of Mishnah. The Yerushalmi, meanwhile, talks extensively about the first one - but has nothing about the next to last one. There are also other tractates missing in the middle for both.

Now, technically the Babylonian Talmud was codified at the end of the Amora'ic era. However, somewhat unlike the Mishnah (well, I'm not being accurate, the Mishnah also has a thing or two that was shoved later), there were still later additions from a time known as the Savora'ic era. Savora is a word that means "a reasoner" in Aramaic, and I probably could've explained how appropriate this name is for them if I'd have studied enough. From what I know, the characteristics of a Talmudic piece from the Savora'ic era is having no names mentioned/having names of known Savora'im mentioned (the latter is a little rare, to my understanding), and reasoning about the language and meaning of words from the Mishnah. the Savora'ic era probably ended at around the 6th-7th century CE.

From that point on, we'll need to more or less abandon the comfortable division I offered earlier, because it's kind of hard to say which book belongs where, besides many books that might technically fall under the same category but be different enough to require their own categories. In addition, from here on out, no book is considered as all-obligating: you can't go against the Talmud in a halachic ruling, but you can go against anything later.

But, since this thing is long enough as it is right now, I think I'll just write a couple of additions about important books I chose not to mention, and then finish it here for now - with the next couple of periods of history of Jewish religious literature left for a future date.

So, the most significant genre of books I've been ignoring are the Midrashim. I mean, sure, I could talk about Apocrypha, or about the Tosefta/Baraitot (oral traditions that didn't get into the Mishnah), but I mentioned those already. The Midrashim, however, are a genre of writing I completely ignored so far.

I think the best way to explain Midrash is that it's a loose interpretation of the Mikra, based on traditions. There are generally two sub-genres for Midrash - Midrash Halachah and Midrash Agadah. The former concerns itself with the law, the latter with the stories and ideas. The books of Midrashei Halachah we have that I can remember are Mechilta (lit. "Including", more or less. On Exodus), Sifra (lit. "Book", from Aramaic. On Leviticus) and Sifrei (lit. "Books", from Aramaic. On Numbers and Deuteronomy). Those are mostly from the Tana'ic era, I think. There are two major books of Midrashei Agadah, both encompassing all of the pentateuch, named Midrash Rabbah and Midrash Tanḥuma. Those are named after specific people, likely the ones who compiled them, and those names indicate they are from the Amora'ic era.

So, to sum it up: 24 books written during the vague time of the Biblical era, codified into the Tanakh at around 300 BCE, with lots of disagreement on the exact date. Oral traditions passed down between generations, including ones clashing with each other and rulings added through the generations, passed around throughout the Tana'ic era (10-220 CE), and codified into 60 tractates of Mishnah by the end of it. In addition, at the same time, some loose interpretations of the Tanakh that have led to the rulings of those oral traditions are written down in the Midrashim. Discussions and elaborations on those oral traditions of the Mishnah as recorded from places of learning in Babylon and the Land of Israel through the Amora'ic era - around 220-500 CE - are recorded in the Talmud, with some additions from around the 6th century CE.

Any inconsistency in spelling and terminology is to be blamed on my unwillingness to go back and edit this. Sorry.

Thank you for reading, have a good day, and I hope to see you for part 2! Once I get an idea about what I'm going to say in it...

[gay-jewish-bucky]

If tumblr existed the night before the Torah was given at Mt. Sinai

[eretzyisrael]

SHAVUOT IS COMING!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) night begins the holiday of Shavuot, commemorating the greatest moment in human history: Moses and the Jewish people receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Shavuot means “weeks,” and it marks the end of the seven week Omer period, when we count the 49 days from redemption (Passover) to revelation. The holiday lasts two days (one day in Israel.)

Customs of the holiday include:

-  Lighting candles 

-  Hearing the Ten Commandments in synagogue

-  Staying up all night learning Torah

-  Reading the Book of Ruth

-  Eating cheesecake (and other dairy foods.)

-   Decorating synagogue and home with flowers

Matan Torah (giving of the Torah) represents the wedding between God and the Jewish people, and celebrating it every year is akin to renewing our vows. Shavuot is also an agricultural festival known as the “holiday of first fruits.” It is one of the three pilgrimage festivals when Jews were required to bring sacrifices to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (the other festivals are Passover and Sukkot.)

May you have a blessed and beautiful Shavuot!

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Jewish Song of the Day #40: Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai

Comments:

Okay so this one is a little tricky to explain the context of, because it requires a certain baseline of existing knowledge, but I'm gonna try.

So this is a Lag b'Omer song, for reasons I will get to momentarily.

Lag b'Omer is the 33rd day in the counting cycle of the Omer - the 49 days between the second day of Passover (Pesach) and the holiday of Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people by Hashem from Mt. Sinai.

Lag b'Omer is celebrated for a couple of reasons:

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who lived in the second century of the Common Era, was the first to publicly teach the mystical dimension of the Torah known as the Kabbalah, and is the author of the classic text of Kabbalah, the Zohar. On the day of his passing, Rabbi Shimon instructed his disciples to mark the date as “the day of my joy.” The chassidic masters explain that the final day of a righteous person’s earthly life marks the point at which all their deeds, teachings and work achieve their culminating perfection and the zenith of their impact upon our lives. So each Lag BaOmer, we celebrate Rabbi Shimon’s life and the revelation of the esoteric soul of Torah. Lag BaOmer also commemorates another joyous event. The Talmud relates that in the weeks between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot, a plague raged among the disciples of the great sage Rabbi Akiva (teacher of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai), “because they did not act respectfully towards each other.” These weeks are therefore observed as a period of mourning, with various joyous activities proscribed by law and custom. On Lag BaOmer the deaths ceased. Thus, Lag BaOmer also carries the theme of loving and respecting one’s fellow (ahavat Yisrael).

(Source: Chabad - read more about it here)

Because of this, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is associated with the day, and therefore this song exists.

It is also worth noting that the first 32 days of the Omer (also referred to as the sephira) traditional Jews observe a number of mourning customs, including restrictions on music. I typically observe some level of this, so JSOTD might go on hiatus for that month, or at a minimum, might switch to a capella music only. I might also switch to doing a "Jewish Teaching of the Day" instead. Please let me know what y'all think in the notes. There is also another similar three week period during the summer months of Tammuz and Av where mourning customs are observed. I will likely do the same thing during both.

The Omer doesn’t occur until early May, but I figured I'd give a heads-up while I am talking about this anyway.

Enjoy the song and let me know your thoughts!

[fanchonmoreau]

Sometimes being Jewish is like... I am at the JCC at quarter to midnight and I am participating in a Prince of Egypt singalong. Tony nominated actor Steven Skybell is also here. Later I will fist fight a large throng of Jews to get a slice of cheesecake, a food that several of us cannot properly digest. This is how we are celebrating God giving us the Torah on Mt. Sinai thousands of years ago. My heart is full.

[kimchicuddles]

Tonight begins malchut b'malchut, the last night for my mishpocha who are counting with me... Thank you so much for supporting my work! patreon.com/kimchicuddles

The Omer is counted every nightfall starting the 2nd night of Passover until the night before Shavuot (marking when we received the Torah). This yearly cycle of counting lasts 49 days and every nightfall has its own opportunity for reflection. Each of the 7 weeks has its own focus and each of the 7 days within each week has its own focus within that focus. During Sefirat Ha'Omer, we are invited on a mystical journey, a journey that spirals us deeper and deeper into discovering what exists within our psyches and souls…

text reads:

We've reached the last night of counting the omer.

I usually only reflect on these things alone, but it's been interesting having the journey out loud, so to speak.

And now that we are standing at the edge of Mt Sinai together, where our souls first met in collective revelation,

in celebration of Shavuot I'm shifting my attention to COLLABORATION 

[girlactionfigure]

18 Tamuz - Moshe’s Second Ascent - 1313 BCE

On this day in the year 1313 BCE Moshe ascended Mt. Sinai for the second time. In the aftermath of the Golden Calf, Moshe ground the idol into a powder, added it to water, and had the people drink. In the morning, all of those who had participated were found dead. The number totaled 3,000. 

Moshe then returned to the mountain to plead with the Almighty on behalf of the Jewish people that He should give them another chance. After 40 days of debate, Moshe returned to tell the people that the Almighty would not abandon them. This was the last day of the month of Av. Moshe then ascended for the third time on Rosh Chodesh Elul. This time to receive the second set of tablets and to relearn the entire Torah for the Almighty. When he would return to the people on what would become Yom Kippur, they knew that they had been forgiven for the Golden Calf, and Yom Kippur was established as the Day of Atonement. 

Rabbi Pinchas L. Landis

[yhebrew]

The Spiritual Meaning of Hebrew Months and Tribe Symbolism in Positioning

ISAR’EL – Ordained in Full View since 1948 This study of positioning has been of great interest to me. We will see that each of the Hebrew months is dedicated to a particular tribe. Each tribe has their own personality. How well do they handle the circumstances they find themselves in? They are counted at the beginning of the 40 years and after The Wildness of 40 years. Yeshua was counted at…

[elperegrinodedios]

So cosa posso e cosa non posso fare e conosco bene i limiti e i confini della mia libertà. Sono un fuorilegge perchè tale era il Signore. Bigottismo si chiama, ciò che ancora viene usato in rispetto di tutti quei preconcetti della religione che come la Torah ascoltava e seguiva il cammino dei dieci comandamenti appunto chiamati "Legge" fin da quando Dio sul Monte Sinai li dettò a Mosè. Poi, un giorno è venuto Gesù che non ha abrogato la "Legge" ma l'ha compiuta ed ha riassunto i dieci comandamenti con una sola unica parola: "Ama" dando cosi inizio al tempo della Grazia e non più della Pazienza di Dio. Abrogata dunque la legge del taglione occhio per occhio sostituita da ama i tuoi cari, i tuoi amici, i tuoi nemici, tu ama tutti. 📖 Infatti se amate solo quelli che vi amano che premio ne avrete, non fanno altrettanto anche i pubblicani?". (Mt. 5:46)

=📖=

* Pubblicani. Ebrei al servizio dei romani e per i quali riscuotevano le tasse. Esattori delle tasse, di non buona fama, considerati come "strozzini" dagli stessi giudei. L'apostolo Matteo era uno di loro, che però lasciò tutto per seguire Gesù.

lan ✍️

[troybeecham]

Fr. Troy Beecham

A Sermon, Pentecost 2023

Today the Church celebrates the great Feast of Pentecost.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, God promised that in the “last days”, inaugurated by the coming of the Messiah, he would pour out his Spirit upon all people. In Acts (2:14 to 18), the apostle Peter quotes this promise to explain what is happening when the disciples of Jesus are suddenly, miraculously able to speak and understand multiple foreign languages starting on the day of Pentecost. Pentecost as a name was first used in the Septuagint, the translation of the Old Testament into Greek created roughly 300 years before Jesus. The translation became necessary because only scholars could read Hebrew by that time and Greek was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean, including in Israel. It was primarily the Septuagint that Jesus and the apostles knew and quoted. The first synagogues began to appear only a few decades before the birth of Jesus. Hebrew scholars gathered together and decided that the people of Israel needed to be able to read the Old Testament in Hebrew, and so synagogues started to be formed, places where men were encouraged to come and learn Hebrew and to be able to read the Old Testament and talk about it intelligently, and to begin to live into the covenant that God made with Israel with understanding and devotion. The Pharisees were the prime movers of this effort, and they were the community in which Jesus was raised. The origin of the bar mitzvah ceremony began during this time, when a boy became an adult at age 13 he had to be able to read a portion of the Old Testament and discuss it with the teachers.

The name Pentecost was so given to the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot in Hebrew, which is the day when Jews around the world remember the giving of the Torah to Moses by God on Mt. Sinai after they had escaped slavery in Egypt. It is also the day when they remember that God called them to be his chosen people and the day on which they said “yes” to God and accepted the covenant with him. Pentecost means “50 days”, indicating that Shavuot is celebrated 50 days after Passover. This outpouring of the Holy Spirit 50 days after the Resurrection of Jesus is how the early Christians, who were mostly Jewish, came to call it Pentecost, a second Pentecost, marking the beginning of the age of the Messiah promised so many centuries before, the giving of a new covenant between God and all humankind, and the giving of the new law, “Love one another as I have loved you”.

Why would God mark this great new beginning, the beginning of the Messianic age, the start of the Church, by giving Jesus’ disciples the supernatural ability to speak in all the many languages of the world? Later, filled with the Spirit, the apostles would also heal the lame, cure the sick, and cast out demons, as Jesus had said.

Just as he is ascending into the heavenly realm, Jesus commands his disciples, saying “As you go into the world, make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." There it is, the Church’s reason for being, its essential identity, and it is all about making disciples of Jesus among all peoples and nations, bringing them into communion with God through Jesus. And this requires language, communication. This is why the first manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Jesus’ disciples has to do with the communication of truth.

Language, communication, is about so much more than simply understanding words. Language, spoken or otherwise, conveys the totality of a person’s identity, be it cultural, religious, economic, class, and every other kind of social identity. At the surface level, language depends upon the spoken word and

that word is always in a particular language: Hebrew, Greek, Chinese, Sign Language, etc. At this level words can express true things, but they can also deceive and lie. Beyond the spoken word, we communicate through body language, tone of voice, volume of voice. In fact, 65% of what we communicate is non-verbal (which is why texts, emails, and even phone calls can never replace in person interaction). Our bodies, our unspoken communication, often speak louder and more honestly than our words. When our lives speak through our actions, our affiliations, the way we spend our time and money, etc., we are revealing what is true about ourselves, truths that sometimes are not congruent with our words. Words can fail us just when we need them most, especially in situations where tragedy, death, and betrayal render us mute, and especially in times of cultural turmoil as we are witnessing today in our country, and around the world, as demagogues, political elites, religious leaders, news media, and anyone with access to the hearts and minds of millions, are waging a war for our souls with words.What will our mouths and our lives say in the midst of such fear, rage, hopelessness, and yes, for some, exultation in taking advantage of this maelstrom, stoking it to further their dark ambitions?

This is why God gives us his Holy Spirit, that we might continuously be born again, sanctified moment to moment, so that our lives and our words are congruent, full of integrity, full of God’s love, and given the supernatural gift of discernment to understand what people are really saying with their lives, to see through the lies of those who seek to control us, enslave us, and keep us living in fear. Through the Holy Spirit we have still yet a deeper language and ability to understand. By the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God we are equally able to communicate with each other true things like compassion, humility, generosity of spirit, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long-suffering, fidelity, gentleness, and chastity, even if we do no speak a common language. These things speak through us more loudly and clearly, either by their presence or their absence, than do all our words and gestures. This is the language of God given to us by grace, a language that the human family so desperately needs to hear spoken with fluency by the Church, by each disciple of Jesus.

We deceive ourselves if we think that we are fooled by each other. We all, subconsciously at least, hear beyond spoken words and bodily gestures. The heart reads the heart and the Holy Spirit recognizes itself wherever it sees itself manifest in us. The Holy Spirit teaches us the Truth, and teaches us the truth of all the things that we hear and see. Many of us talk passionately about our love for those who suffer: the poor, the alien in our midst, those living under generations of prejudice and violence. But if they are not already part of our lives, our parishes, they do not hear us, understand us, or desire to gather around us, even when we think that we speak perfectly in their native tongue. Unless we are filled with the Holy Spirit of God, our words and our lives cannot speak with integrity of the love of God in Jesus. This is the language of God and the ability to discern the Truth given at Pentecost by God to all who will receive him through his Son Jesus.

God offers all people salvation from their sin, individually and corporately, through his Son Jesus. In this age of the Spirit-filled church, all people are invited into communion with the Lord and with each other, first communicated through God’s language of love, forgiveness, reconciliation, and hope. As we become part of the earthly Body of Jesus, his Church, through grace by faith and through the waters of Holy Baptism, we can receive the gift of the Holy Spirit who will give us power to live in mutual love, forgiveness, humility, and reconciliation. We can gain the ability to discern the Truth if we invite him into our lives.

What God is asking for are people like you and me to be willing to give our lives wholeheartedly to him through Jeus, that the Holy Spirit might live in us and through us, speaking the language of God through our lives and our lips, and by revealing the Truth in all things to us so that we might know the Truth and then communicate the Truth. As we are witnessing the violence in our own country, or the violence perpetrated against the people of China who are seeking liberty and freedom from oppression, or the ongoing plague of civil war and mass disease and starvation in Yemen, we need disciples who can fluently discern the Truth and speak and live the language of God more than ever.

I pray that God will touch your heart, and mine, and help us with his grace so that we might be filled with his Holy Spirit for the sake of our human family that is so lost in the babble of our brokenness and deceived by the lies of the evil one. Pray with me that God’s Son Jesus will be known, heard, and received by all who live, who may then be filled by his Holy Spirit so that we might truly come to love, respect, and honor each other.

O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, to speak only the language of your Spirit, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen

[skankhunt44]

I didn't used to be a fan of Shavuot (I mean, the events at our Shul were fun as a kid), but now, as an adult, I love it. I love studying Torah, and I love the fact that today was the day that we (well, Moshe technically) received the Ten Commandments and Torah at Mt. Sinai on this day in the Hebrew calendar.

Also, the day they were so paranoid about breaking the new Kosher laws from Torah, they only ate cheese.

[veale2006-blog]

The Oneness of the Godhead, Part 1 May 2, 2023 We will speak of Yeshua Hamashiach, and how He fits in the godhead. You pronounce Hamashiach “hah-ma-she-ah”. He is called Jesus Christ, in the Western world. Who is He, what is He, and what is His place in the godhead? First, the promise made to Moses.

Deut 18:15 – 18 15 The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;

This is Moses speaking to the people. 16 According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.

At Mt. Sinai, the people were so scared of the ground shaking, the thunders, the loud trumpets, and the intense flames of fire, the people pleaded with Moses to tell Yeshua to stop talking and make the fire and thunder go away.

17 And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.

18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

Yehovah promised Moses that an anointed Prophet would be born in Israel of the tribe of Levi. Yeshua was that Prophet.

Now, the Psalm that King David wrote. We will paraphrase it.

Psalms 110:1-4 1 Yehovah said unto Yeshua, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. 2 Yehovah shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. 3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. 4 Yehovah hath sworn, and will not repent, Yeshua shall be a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Here, in the Psalms, King David prophesied that Yeshua will be both a King, and a priest, just like Melchizedek.

Zech 9:9 9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

On the 10th day of the 1st Hebrew month, named Aviv, every year the high priest would bring a lamb from Bethlehem thru the east gate and carry it up to the temple. For about 428 years with the first Temple, and 436 years with the second temple, it was a yearly rehearsal for the Messiah to come thru the East gate, four days before Passover. They knew that someday, one of those years, the Messiah would show Himself, riding on a donkey into Jerusalem.

In the year AD 28, on April 24, the 10th day of Aviv, close to 9:30 AM on Saturday, the Sabbath, Yeshua rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, as prophesied by Zechariah. This was Palm Saturday. There never was any Palm Sunday. That is another Catholic false teaching. Four days later, on Wednesday, the 14th of Aviv, Yeshua was sacrificed as the Lamb of God, on Passover. For three days and nights, Yeshua laid in the tomb, fulfilling the feast of unleavened Bread. On Saturday, in the late afternoon, about 5:30 PM, Yeshua rose from the dead. The Lord of the Sabbath, rose from the dead on the Sabbath. Maybe three hours later, Yeshua resurrected 24 Old Testament believers that had kept the Torah, and they walked into the city of Jerusalem. Sunday morning, after telling Mary Magdalene “Touch me not”, Yeshua took the 24 saints to Heaven, to present them to Yehovah, where they became known as the 24 elders. This was fulfillment of the First Fruits Offering.

Fifty days later, in Jerusalem, the 120 disciples of Yeshua were filled with the Ghost of Yeshua. This was the fulfillment of the Day of Pentecost, just as when Yehovah spoke from Mt. Sinai to Israel, giving them the new language of Hebrew.

Before the second coming of Yeshua, He must first fulfil the Day of Trumpets. In the first and second temple periods, whenever the first sliver of the renewed Moon appeared at sundown, it marked the beginning of a new Hebrew month. Those in Jerusalem that saw it would go to the temple gates and see if they would be “called up” by the high priest to a room where they would be questioned about what they saw. The high priest would stand outside on a balcony and point to who he wanted from the crowd gathering outside and say “Come up hither.” Two witnesses would be allowed to come up to a room and describe what they saw, confirming that the renewed Moon for the new month had been sighted. Then the call would be made to light the signal fires on the hilltops across the land to let all of Israel know that a new month has officially begun.

The most celebrated renewed Moon of the year is that of the seventh month named Tishri, marking the Day of Trumpets. Here are two assumptions. First, it is expected that after coming down from Heaven, the two witnesses will begin their testimony on the Sabbath. Second, it is expected that the two witnesses will rise from the dead upon the sighting of the renewed Moon, beginning the month of Tishri, on late Tuesday evening, September 23, 2025, after being dead for three and a half days, or eighty-four hours. This would be the Day of Trumpets. They would have ended their testimony before being killed by the anti-Christ, early the previous Saturday morning, September 20.

Counting back 1,260 days, or 180 weeks, from that Saturday, puts us to the month Aviv on Saturday morning, the Sabbath, April 9, 2022, the seventh day of the first Hebrew month. If certain guesswork is correct, Elijah and Enoch would begin their testimony on that day. Only Yehovah knows. Once they do appear, whether this year or years from now, how will the world react to the appearance of two men dressed in sackcloth, with fire streaming out of their mouths ever so often whenever they are threatened?

When they rise from the dead, after viewing the renewed Moon for a time, Yeshua will shout down from Heaven “Come up Hither”, meaning Come up here!! This is about the only way that Yeshua would be able to fulfill the feast of the Day of Trumpets. Three and a half years later, would be the second coming of the Messiah, Yeshua Hamashiach.

Yehovah created a plan for salvation of mankind from the bondage of sin and Satan. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not put in the garden to test mankind, namely Adam and Eve. The tree was put there to snag Satan, hook, line, and sinker. Yehovah knew that Satan would jump at the chance to make Adam, the sixth advent of mankind to be put on this Earth, disobey God. By Adam eating of the forbidden fruit, this opened the door for Yehovah to take back ownership of Earth, and begin the downfall of Satan.

Adam was a sinless male earthling, made of the dust of the Earth. By eating of the forbidden fruit, he went to the pawnshop of Satan, and forfeited the birthright of Earth, and his soul, to Satan. In exchange, mankind received the curse of bondage, and subsequent death. The only person that could redeem the birthright and souls of mankind was another male earthling, that was without sin.

Satan thought that he had obtained a stay of execution by tricking Adam and Eve into eating the evil fruit. He knew that every human born by the seed of Adam would be born into sin. He thought that he had Yehovah stuck in a corner. But the super wise and powerful God had a plan to overcome Satan. Yehovah would father, or beget, a human male, born without sin, that would be King, Priest, and Prophet.

Mary’s mother was born of the priestly line of Aaron. Mary’s father was born of the kingly line of David and Solomon. That made Mary half Judean of the kingly line of David, and half Levite of the priestly line of Aaron. Yehovah quickened the womb of Mary in early December of 4 BC, by giving her a “Y” chromosome when she went to visit Elisabeth, her cousin. Three months later, John the Baptist was born on the first day of unleavened bread, March 31, 3 BC, one day after Passover. John was circumcised on the eighth day.

After staying a month with Elisabeth, to help her with her newborn baby, Mary returned to Nazareth in early May, over four months pregnant, and beginning to show. I suppose that Joseph went along with the wedding in June, after having the dream telling him that the baby was of the spirit of God.

When Yeshua was born, it was after sundown on September 26, 3 BC, which was the first day of the feast of Tabernacles, and was circumcised on the eighth day, like John the Baptist was. The analysis of Yeshua’s blood found on the Ark of Covenant proved that He was the human Son of Yehovah. It had one “x” chromosome, and 22 autosomes from Mary. It also had one “Y” chromosome that was not from a human male. It was from Yehovah. Other human beings have 46 chromosomes in their white blood cells. One ‘x’ or ‘y’ chromosome and 22 autosomes come from the father. One “x” chromosome and 22 autosomes come the mother. That is 46 chromosomes in all. But Yeshua only had 24 in all. One powerful, sinless chromosome from Yehovah, and 23 from Mary.

The ungodly Catholic Church teaches that the only reason Yeshua was born without sin, is because of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, meaning that she was born without original sin, and passed those attributes to Yeshua, which is a big fat lie. It comes from the Roman worship of Ishtar and Isis. Songs and prayers are devoted to Mary, which is nothing but pagan idolatry.

End of Part one.