Saturday, December 24, 2011

back to three

I started reading the book "The History of Pi" by Petr Beckmann.  I found this conclusion most interesting, in light of the fact that the root idea behind the word  שלש is the concept of measurement.

"Man first learned to count to two, and a long time elapsed before he learned to count to higher numbers.  There is a fair amount of evidence for this, perhaps none of it more fascinating than that preserved in man's languages: In Czech, until the Middle Ages, there used to be two kinds of plural -- one for two items, another for many (more than two) items, and apparently in Finnish [and Hebrew-ed.note] this is so to this day.  There is evidently no connection between the (Germanic) words two and half; these is none in the Romance languages (French: deux and moitie) nor in the Slavic languages (Russian: dva and pol), and in Hungarian, which is not an Indo-European language, the words are ketto and fel. [True also in Hebrew: shnayim and khetzi-ed.note]  Yet in all European languages, the words for 3 and 1/3, 4 and 1/4, etc., are related.  This suggests that men grasped the concept of a ratio, and the  idea of a relation between a number and its reciprocal only after they had learned to count beyond two." (page 19)




Wednesday, December 21, 2011

My testimony

What a blessing for those around me!  I have had laryngitis for a while (think about it) and have been unable to do any new videos....This testimony was recorded in 2007, but still stands today.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

The smallest letter - Yod - Part 5

Errata is this week's episode - Nahum dalet, but oh no, there are only 3 chapters in Nahum.  The slide is correct.  Adoniyahu would be Adonijah, not Elijah.  Many a slip twixt tongue and lip.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

More Messianic Myths

The nature of what we covered in the previous post (Is Adonai a pagan term?) is something rampant among Messianics without balance. Everyone wants to have some secret insight into Torah, or Hebrew, or Yeshua’s life. We see two bandwagons: everything Jewish is right or everything Jewish is wrong. We swing like great pendulums: the church lied to me, the rabbis lied to me. Oy va voy li! We are a people without discernment and unwilling to humble ourselves to listen to input from what might seem like unlikely places. Ephraim continues to envy Judah, and Judah continues to vex Ephraim.

What is this all about? My friend Schleppstein recently bought a beautiful pendant from what I am sure were some well-meaning people at a rally on behalf of Israel. They represented themselves as Messianic, whether Judah or Ephraim, I know not. She couldn’t remember what they told her the writing meant, so she sent me these pictures.



Since the back was clearer, I tackled that first: “My fire will burn until the coming of the Messiah.” Okay, not bad. The calligraphy in the middle consists of the letters for ‘my fire.’ Of course, it turns out that this is a saying of Rabbi Nachman of Brelov and his recently discovered (2006) description of Messiah is used to prove that Yeshua is not the One: http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/messiah-in-all-but-name-1.219144, although some believers have tried to resolve the two: http://roshpinaproject.com/2009/12/18/nachmans-messiah-and-yeshua-of-nazareth/  In fact, we do not wait for the coming of Messiah, but for His return.

I looked at the front side. The letters are harder to read but I could easily recognize Joseph’s name. Then the scripture came to mind: Genesis 49:22 "Joseph is a fruitful bough by a well,” and indeed, the letters were discernible for the scripture.

But the letters at the bottom did not appear to spell anything. Aleph-lamed-dalet. They are separated by dots and I began to think that perhaps they were the initials of the name of some group that was manufacturing and selling these pendants. I took a stab and googled ‘aleph lamed dalet’.

Bingo.
http://www.yourholylandstore.com/product_info.php?pName=kabbalah-aleph-lamed-dalet-safeguarding-filigree-pendant: • On the pendant there are Hebrew letters Aleph Lamed Dalet - one of several safeguards which, according to Kabbalah offers protection from looks of envy and the mean-spirited intentions of others. Alef Lamed Dalet are one of 72 kabbalah names and their meaning is to protect against evil eye.
• On the back it is written "Ben Porat Yosef" ("A fruitful son is Yosef (Joseph), a fruitful son by a spring.") (Genesis 49:22). "Ben Porat Yosef, Ben Porat Alei Ayin" - This phrase is a blessing that Jacob gave to Joseph before he died (found in the book of Genesis). People use this phrase for protection against the evil eye since Joseph symbolizes a person unharmed by others envy.

What are the so-called 72 names? Interestingly, there are three contiguous verses in Exodus 14:19-21, each of which has 72 letters. The names are generated by writing the first of these verses, letter by letter, forward. The middle verse is written backward, and the third is written forward. This gives you 72 sets of three letters each. In kabbalah, each of these 3 names has some protective power over a person. They are also considered to be the names of 72 angels or ‘intelligences’.

All in all: pure superstition. I doubt whether the people who sold Schleppstein the pendant knew what it meant. Perhaps some nice Jew told them about the scripture without elucidating the rest. I know that if they had explained to her all that was written, she would not have purchased it.

We have a word in Yiddish: bubbemeises. It is like old wives’ tales, by which, unfortunately, the current generation of Messianics, or Torah Observant Believers, or whatever you call yourself these days, is easily seduced. It’s Hebrew, it sounds good, it must be true.

Perhaps we will cover more of these soon.

My computer is home and working nicely. For free. Praise YH.

And no, her name is not really Schleppstein, but that is another story for another day.

Shalom.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Is Adonai a pagan term?

A wandering from the road but a subject that needs to be addressed. And we will be gone for a bit (again ) because my computer is having problems and it will have to be shipped back to the manufacturer and it will take two weeks.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Counting the cost - First - Part 2

My less-than-one-year old computer is having serious monitor problems. Please pray that they would be covered by warranty. Thanks and blessings to you.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

back soon

Sorry I've been out of pocket for so long. I'm working on getting caught up. And on installing skype so we can have long distance Hebrew lessons....

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The smallest letter - yod - part 3

Missed some citations in English on slide 2: Psalm 18:40 and 2 Samuel 22:37.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Counting the cost - One

A new series looking into the meaning behind each Hebrew number. We start with......One!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Walking the walk - Part 2 - Testimony

I am a privileged user at youtube (with about a jillion other people, I expect). I am able to post this full teaching in one swoop. I have hated to have to break up these word studies because the really good stuff is in the 2nd half. But now, voila, the two have become one. Enjoy!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The valuable vav - Part 3

The beginning of the vav as a suffix. I think this will take about three installments altogether.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Walking the walk - Psalm 119 - Torah part 1

There are 9 words in Psalm 119 which refer to the Word of YHWH and at least one of these is used in each verse of the psalm with the exceptions of verse 90 and verse 122. So these words must be kind of important, eh?
We're going to dissect them one by one.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The valuable vav - Part 1

Back to the aleph-bet. Remember, we were going to investigate the letters which are used as prefixes and suffixes to give meanings in addition to just being letters as parts of words. Here in the introduction to the letter vav.
ERRATUM ALERT: At about 7:48 the scripture is wrong....I wrote Genesis 22, I said Genesis 25, but it should be Genesis 26.....Oopsie.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Inside the times and seasons - Tabernacles Part 2

We have come to the end of the cycle of the appointed times...Eternity is right around the corner.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Three days of snow

What do we think about entertainment? Which means 'to hold in a certain frame of mind.' Or amusement? Which means 'divert from serious business' or ' "deceive, cheat" by first occupying the attention.'

We have been snowed in for three days. I hope this brings a little smile to your face.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Inside the times and seasons - Atonement Part 2

An interesting tidbit from another language: What Americans had labelled German war "propaganda" at the time of World War II, is called Weltanschauungskrieg in German (you've got to admire how they string nouns together like that). It literally means 'world-view war'.

These week's flub involves Esther, which took place in Persia, not Babylon.