“Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah – not until everything that must happen has happened”. -Matthew 5:17-18 (CJB)

These few simple sentences (at least they seem simple) uttered by Yeshua (Jesus) have caused more than a little confusion among the faithful. Traditionally, when Yeshua says that he has come to “complete” or to “fulfill” the Torah (Law), it’s thought that he has come to “end” it. On the other hand, in the same breath he says that not even the smallest stroke of one Hebrew letter in the Torah will pass away, until heaven and earth themselves pass away. Last time I looked, earth was still here and faith tells me so is heaven. Now what do we do?

Yeshua’s words seem to contradict much of Paul’s later writings including Romans 10:4 (“…the goal of Torah is Messiah”) and what seems to be the whole point of Galatians. If the “goal” of Torah is Messiah Yeshua, and Yeshua has come, most believers assume the Torah has been done away with.

I don’t want to go into an extensive teaching about what is and isn’t applicable from the Torah to the lives of Jewish and Gentile believers today. That’s the whole point of both the “Torah 101″ class I teach, and the much more extensive What are the 613 Commandments class. There are also fair wiser scholars than I who have written extensively on this topic, so I don’t want to “reinvent the wheel”, as such. I do however, want to share some thoughts I had while reading some of the pages from Bivin and Blizzard’s book, Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus, which I previously reviewed on this blog.

The premise of the Bivin and Blizzard book is that Yeshua’s teachings are only “difficult” if we remove them from their Hebraic linguistic and idiomatic context. Once we translate the English back into Hebrew, the context of the Jewish language and Rabbinic idiom result in clearer and more meaningful teachings for we disciples from our Master. From the authors’ point of view, the one thing that should be clear from the passages in Matthew right from the start, is that the Torah is here for the long haul.

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I’m writing this short article as a departure from my usual fare of book reviews and theological presentations. Several days ago, I came across a “tweet” on twitter (a microblogging service) pointing to the blog of a man named Dr. Dan Crabtree. According to his bio on the blog, Dr. Crabtree describes himself as a “Physician and friend to many wonderful people, Follower and servant of Christ, Elder of Tabernacle Church, Student and teacher of His Word, Lover of His people, Beneficiary of His mercy and grace. On January 23,2008 I was diagnosed with advanced stage IV Malignant Melanoma, forced to give up my practice, and currently under the care of the Melanoma Center at UVA”.

I read his latest blog post dated April 21st called THERRAPPY in which Dr. Crabtree describes his 6th gamma knife procedure, which he had undergone the previous day. I’ll let his blog article speak for itself rather than repeat his words, but he just seems like a person who truly lives out the heart of God and even when under dire circumstances, honors the life and will of Yeshua (Jesus) before all else. Reading of his amazing faith, I’m reminded of the prayer that Yeshua prayed at Gethsemane the night before his execution:

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” -Mark 14:32-36 (NIV)

“Yet not what I will, but what You will”. The words are haunting, not just because they were spoken by Yeshua hours before he was to be literally sacrificed as our “Lamb of God”, but because of all of the faithful people, including Dr. Crabtree, who have spoken them since. Our dear sister Cyndy Stucker might well have spoken those same words and truly, her heart was and is as faithful as Dr. Crabtree’s and as Yeshua’s. There are many other friends and loved ones among our congregation who have left us, who were of the same spirit. We mourn their lost, sit shiva for our departed, and await our reunion with them in the Messiah.

Dr. Crabtree is still here. He’s still living his life faithfully. He still exhorts the rest of us to a life of faith, just as Cyndy did, just as Naomi did, and just as Darlene describes how her sister-in-law Christie did before she was taken. I write this in the hopes that we’ll all take a moment out of our lives to stop and consider people like Dan Crabtree, Cyndy, Naomi, Christie, but mostly, Yeshua, our Savior, Master, Shepherd, and Lamb. In the midst of our own very human struggles and heartaches, I hope they can be an inspiration to us as to what it really means to live a life of faithfulness.

Blessings.

According to Rabbi Ephraim Becker, “Mussar is the term for describing the lifelong endeavor to make a human being ever more Godlike”. The Mussar movement has a rather extensive history and providing a detailed description is beyond the scope of this article. I’ll point you to the Wikipedia article on Mussar for those details. What I want to illustrate about Mussar is something more specific.

I recently read an article that Rabbi Becker wrote for Torah.org called The Difference between Mussar and Self-Improvement. Since I just provided the link, I encourage everyone to give it a read, but in essence, Rabbi Becker separates the goals of self-help vs. Mussar as the difference between helping yourself for your own sake and helping yourself for God’s. To again quote Rabbi Becker, “The Torah calls upon every human being (both Jews and Gentiles in different ways) to recognize this world as the place to activate G-d’s Will through the use of the physical world of things, feelings, thoughts and actions”. The purpose of our existence on Earth is to serve God, not merely to serve our own needs or interests.

While, as believers, was can agree on this in principle, it’s sometimes difficult to bring the principle into practice. Our world and our personal lives seem fraught with troubles and hardships. We are all facing a difficult economy, an uncertain political administration, and a planet that seems to spawn one crisis after another at breakneck speed. The Torah (such as Exodus 22:21) and the Gospels (such as Luke 10:30-37) talk about our duty to help those less fortunate than us. Giving aid to the widow and orphan, visiting the sick and the imprisoned, are all Biblical values that we as believers in Yeshua (Jesus) as supposed to hold dear and to practice. But how to we do that when the world seems to be coming apart around our ears?

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About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article called Was the Sabbath Changed from Saturday to Sunday?. In that article, I made an attempt to address the traditional Christian position that the Sabbath, first established by God Himself in Genesis 2:1-3, was changed from Saturday to Sunday observance. The change is usually Biblically justified by the fact that Yeshua (Jesus) was resurrected on the first day of the week, which is usually thought of as Sunday morning (through from the point of view of the Gospel writers, the first day of the week can be anytime after sundown on Saturday night).

“When Shabbat was over, Miryam of Magdala, Miryam the mother of Ya’akov, and Shlomit bought spices in order to go and anoint Yeshua (Jesus). Very early on Sunday, just after sunrise, they went to the tomb.” -Mark 16:1-2 (CJB)

This is typically referred to as “the Lord’s Day”, though it’s not actually called that in any of the Gospel renditions of the resurrection. I think I made my points in the original article rather well, including the understanding that the Sabbath continues to be observed on Saturday to this day, and that Gentile believers as “grafted in”, are also required to observe the Sabbath. I’ve never received any emails suggesting I was incorrect in my arguments, however there are actually two points of contention regarding the Messianic observance of a Saturday Shabbat from a traditional Christian point of view. The first is a Saturday vs. Sunday observance (which was covered in my prior article), and the second is how or if the Sabbath is to be observed, regardless of the day of the week. Let me explain.

Caveat: This article will make more sense if you first read the original Shabbat article, since a lot of the support for a Saturday Shabbat observance is documented there.

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I just wanted to add a small post regarding Yom HaShoah. According to Jewish Virtual Library:

“The full name of the day commemorating the victims of the Holocaust is “Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah”— literally the “Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism.” It is marked on the 27th day in the month of Nisan — a week after the seventh day of Passover, and a week before Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers). It marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising…”

This day is particularly important in light of the continual and hateful statements in the world stating that not only did the Holocaust never occur, but that it was “created” for the express purpose of displacing the Palestinian people by creating the modern State of Israel. Yesterday, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again publicly made these statements at the Durban II conference.

The United States and other nations wisely boycotted this gathering and, as President Ahmadinejad made his hateful statements, representatives of several other nations walked out of this speech. The World still has a conscience and a memory, but both are fading. We have a responsibility to make sure the world never forgets, starting with ourselves. The following is a list of links about today’s observance of Yom HaShoah in different communities as well as general information:

Yom HaShoah from the Israeli Knesset (in English)

Midwest Center for Holocaust Education

Yom HaShoah 2009 Around the Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)

Remembrance, Hope & Responsibility: Yom HaShoah 2009

Today is the commemoration of the Holocaust, when six million Jews died just because they were Jewish. Please remember what today is and what it means. Speak of today to your family, friends, and co-workers. Never forget. Never let the world forget. Never let it happen again.

Authors: David Bivin and Roy Blizzard, Jr.
Format: Paperback, 160 pages
Publisher: Treasure House; Revised edition (October 1, 1994)
ISBN-10: 156043550X
ISBN-13: 978-1560435501

I first read Bivin’s and Blizzard’s book just over 10 years ago. I know this for a fact, because I found a card in my copy of the book from a course I had taken in March 1999. What rekindled my interest in the book was an email exchange I had recently with someone who met Dr. Blizzard 30 years ago or more. The mention of Dr. Blizzard’s name stirred my vague memories of his book (I remembered I thought it was good but couldn’t recall the exact content) and I realized that it was time to read it again. I’m glad I did. In the past 10 years, I’ve been progressing with my studies and my spiritual growth, and I am now able to see this text in a more “mature” light. Reading the book again made me realize that this text has something to say both to the mature Messianic believer and to someone just starting down this path.

The book’s subtitle “New Insights from a Hebraic Perspective” certainly reveals the core intent of Bivin and Blizzard in writing this book. The “difficult words of Jesus” are only difficult if taken out of their 1st Century Hebrew language (and thought) context. As I’m sure most people reading this article know, the Gospels and Epistles were originally written in Koine Greek, or the “common man’s” form of the Greek language used during the day of the Apostles. These works written in Koine Greek would reach the largest audience in the then-civilized world. However, it wasn’t necessarily the ideal language for expressing the thoughts, ideas, and observations of the writers of the Synoptic Gospels, who were all Jewish and all native Hebrew speakers.

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Author: Jonathan Schanzer
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (November 11, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0230609058
ISBN-13: 978-0230609051

Formerly a Counter-terrorism Analyst for the U.S. Department of Treasury, Jonathan Schanzer leverages his background to produce a detailed account of the “struggle” for Palestine, between its two most prominent factions. This is a picture of the history and current interactions of the Palestinian movement and how Palestinian citizens are as much a victim of Hamas and Fatah as are the citizens of Israel.

While the mainstream media tells us that these two political entities exist within overall Palestine, Schanzer takes us behind the scenes of the background and origins of both Fatah and Hamas. He sharply illustrates that there is anything but unity between these two political factions in their common effort to produce an independent Palestinian state. The book is extremely well researched, using a large number of publicly available information sources, to weave a comprehensive tapestry of the story of the Palestinian “resistance”.

What becomes abundantly clear is that the violence between the Palestinians and Israel is a mirror to the violence between Hamas and Fatah, as each faction continues to vie for control over the Palestinian people, the hearts and minds (and money) of the world’s governments, and the spotlight in the international press. Schanzer also shines a light into the shadows and at the involvement of Al Queda, Hezbollah, and Iran in the affairs of Hamas in particular, and how or if they are able to influence Palestinian terrorism against Israel.

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While both Evangelical Christians and Messianic Believers honor the crucifixion and resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus) and all that our Lamb of God has done for us, we express that celebration differently. As I write this, the vast majority of the traditional Christian world is celebrating Easter Sunday. Many in Southwestern Idaho where I live, have attended a dawn service in the nearby hills, welcoming in Easter and the anniversary of the resurrection with the rising of the Sun. Conversely, Messianics celebrated the Messiah as the Lamb of God during a Passover service, held either last Wednesday or Thursday evenings (the evening of Passover or the first full day of Passover).

I suppose Messianics could be considered somewhat grim in celebrating the death but not the life, at least from an Evangelical viewpoint. Why don’t we have an occasion where we celebrate the resurrection? Actually, we do. Both the sacrifice and the risen Lord can be seen in the Passover rendition in the Gospels; you just have to know where to look.

The following is taken from my response to comments made regarding my Why Don’t Christians Count the Omer blog post of April 10th. It establishes some of the Biblical “groundwork” for the Messianic view of the death and rising of the Lamb.

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