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Thursday, November 30, 2017
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Friday, November 24, 2017
2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Thursday, November 23, 2017
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Matthew 6
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Monday, October 9, 2017
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Saturday, September 23, 2017
Friday, September 22, 2017
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Monday, September 18, 2017
Sunday, September 17, 2017
How Yom Teruah Became Rosh Hashanah
Yom Teruah begins the evening of September 21, 2017
From Nehemia's Wall
From Nehemia's Wall
On
the 1st day of the Seventh Month (Tishrei) the Torah commands us to
observe the holy day of Yom Teruah which means “Day of Shouting”
(Leviticus 23:23-25; Numbers 29:1-6). Yom Teruah is a day of rest on
which work is forbidden.
One
of the unique things about Yom Teruah is that the Torah does not say
what the purpose of this holy day is. The Torah gives at least one
reason for all the other holy days and two reasons for some. The Feast
of Matzot (Unleavened Bread) commemorates the Exodus from Egypt, but it
is also a celebration of the beginning of the barley harvest (Exodus
23:15; Leviticus 23:4–14). The Feast of Shavuot (Weeks) is a celebration
of the wheat harvest (Exodus 23:16; 34:22). Yom Ha-Kippurim is a
national day of atonement as described in great detail in Leviticus 16.
Finally, the Feast of Sukkot (Booths) commemorates the wandering of the
Israelites in the desert and is also a celebration of the ingathering of
agricultural produce (Exodus 23:16). In contrast to all these Torah
festivals, Yom Teruah has no clear purpose other than that we are
commended to rest on this day.
Nevertheless,
the name of Yom Teruah provides a clue as to its purpose. Teruah
literally means to make a loud noise. This word can describe the noise
made by a trumpet but it also describes the noise made by a large
gathering of people shouting in unison (Numbers 10:5–6). For example,
“And it shall come to pass when the ram’s horn makes a long blast, when you hear the sound of the shofar, the entire nation will shout a great shout, and the wall of the city shall fall in its place, and the people shall go up as one man against it.”- Joshua 6:5
In
this verse the word “shout” appears twice, once as the verb form of
Teruah and a second time as the noun form of Teruah. Although this verse
mentions the sound of the shofar (ram’s horn), the two instances of
Teruah do not refer to the shofar. In fact, in this verse, Teruah refers
to the shouting of the Israelites which was followed by the fall of the walls of Jericho.
While
the Torah does not explicitly tell us the purpose of Yom Teruah, its
name may indicate that it is intended as a day of public prayer. The
verb form of Teruah often refers to the noise made by a gathering of the
faithful calling out to the Almighty in unison. For example:
-
“Clap hands, all nations, shout to God, with a singing voice!” (Psalms 47:2)
-
“Shout to God, all the earth!” (Psalms 66:1)
-
“Sing to God, our strength, shout to the God of Jacob!” (Psalms 81:2)
-
“Shout to Yehovah, all the earth!” (Psalms 100:1)
In
Leviticus 23:24, Yom Teruah is also referred to as Zichron Teruah. The
word Zichron is sometimes translated as “memorial”, but this Hebrew word
also means to “mention”, often in reference to speaking the name of
Yehovah. For example, Exodus 3:15; Isaiah 12:4; Isaiah 26:13; Psalms
45:17[Heb. 18]. The day of Zichron Teruah, the “Mentioning Shout”, may
refer to a day of gathering in public prayer in which the crowd of the
faithful shouts the name of Yehovah in unison.
Today,
few people remember the biblical name of Yom Teruah and instead it is
widely known as "Rosh Hashanah" which literally means “head of the year”
and hence also “New Years”. The transformation of Yom Teruah (Day of
Shouting) into Rosh Hashanah (New Years) is the result of pagan
Babylonian influence upon the Jewish nation. The first stage in the
transformation was the adoption of the Babylonian month names. In the
Torah, the months are numbered as First Month, Second Month, Third
Month, etc (Leviticus 23; Numbers 28). During their sojourn in Babylonia
our ancestors began to use the pagan Babylonian month names, a fact
readily admitted in the Talmud:
“The names of the months came up with them from Babylonia.” (Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 1:2 56d)
The
pagan nature of the Babylonian month names is epitomized by the fourth
month known as Tammuz. In the Babylonian religion, Tammuz was the god of
grain whose annual death and resurrection brought fertility to the
world. In the book of Ezekiel, the prophet described a journey to
Jerusalem in which he saw the Jewish women sitting in the Temple
“weeping over Tammuz” (Ezekiel 8:14). The reason they were weeping over
Tammuz is that, according to Babylonian mythology, Tammuz had been slain
but had not yet been resurrected. In ancient Babylonia, the time for
weeping over Tammuz was the early summer, when the rains cease
throughout the Middle East and green vegetation is burnt by the
unrelenting sun. To this day the Fourth Month in the rabbinical calendar
is known as the month of Tammuz and it is still a time for weeping and
mourning.
Some
of the Babylonian month names found their way into the later books of
the Tanakh, but they always appear alongside the Torah month names. For
example, Esther 3:7 says:
“In the First Month, which is the month of Nissan, in the twelfth year of King Achashverosh.”
This
verse starts off by giving the Torah name for the month (“First Month”)
and then translates this month into its pagan equivalent (“which is the
month of Nissan”). By the time of Esther, all the Jews lived within the
boundaries of the Persian Empire and the Persians had adopted the
Babylonian calendar for the civil administration of their realm. At
first, the Jews used these Babylonian month names alongside the Torah
month names, but over time the Torah month names fell into disuse.
As
the Jewish People became more comfortable with the Babylonian month
names, they became more susceptible to other Babylonian influences. This
is similar to the way that American Jews observe Hanukkah as a Jewish
version of Christmas. This influence began with the seemingly harmless
custom of giving gifts on Hanukkah. Until the Jews arrived in America
this custom was unknown and it is still a rarity in Israel where
Hanukkah does not need to compete with Christmas for the hearts and
minds of the Jewish youth. Once Hanukkah took on this relatively trivial
aspect of Christmas, it became ripe for more significant influences.
Today, many American Jews have established the custom of setting up a
“Hanukkah bush” as a Jewish alternative to the Christmas tree. These
Jews did not want to adopt Christmas outright so they “Judaized” the
Christmas tree and incorporated into Hanukkah. This example shows how
easy it is to be influenced by the practices of a foreign religion,
especially when there is some similarity to begin with. The fact that
Hanukkah often falls out around the same time as Christmas made it
natural for American Jews to incorporate elements of Christmas into
their observance of Hanukkah.
Just
as the Jews of America have been influenced by Christmas, the ancient
Rabbis were influenced by the pagan Babylonian religion. Although many
Jews returned to Judea when the Exile officially ended in 516 BCE, the
forebears of the Rabbis remained behind in Babylonia where rabbinical
Judaism gradually took shape. Many of the earliest known Rabbis such as
Hillel I were born and educated in Babylonia. Indeed, Babylonia remained
the heartland of Rabbinical Judaism until the fall of the Gaonate in
the 11th Century CE. The Babylonian Talmud abounds with the influences
of Babylonian paganism. Indeed, pagan deities even appear in the Talmud
recycled as "Jewish" angels and demons.1
One
field of Babylonian religious influence was in the observance of Yom
Teruah as a New Years celebration. From very early times the Babylonians
had a lunar-solar calendar very similar to the biblical calendar. The
result was that Yom Teruah often fell out on the same day as the
Babylonian New Years festival of “Akitu”. The Babylonian Akitu fell out
on the 1st day of Tishrei which coincided with Yom Teruah on the 1st day
of the Seventh Month. When Jews started calling the "Seventh Month" by
the Babylonian name "Tishrei", it paved the way for turning Yom Teruah
into a Jewish Akitu. At the same time, the Rabbis did not want to adopt
Akitu outright so they Judaized it by changing the name of Yom Teruah
(Day of Shouting) to Rosh Hashanah (New Years). The fact that the Torah
did not give a reason for Yom Teruah no doubt made it easier for the
Rabbis to proclaim it the Jewish New Years.
It is outright bizarre to celebrate Yom Teruah as New Years. This biblical festival falls out on the first day of the Seventh
Month. However, in the context of Babylonian culture this was perfectly
natural. The Babylonians actually celebrated Akitu, New Years, twice
every year, once on the first of Tishrei and again six months later on
the first of Nissan. The first Babylonian Akitu celebration coincided
with Yom Teruah and the second Akitu coincided with the actual New Years
in the Torah on the first day of the First Month. While the Rabbis
proclaimed Yom Teruah to be New Years, they still recognized that the
1st day of the “First Month” in the Torah was, as its name implied, also
a New Years. They could hardly deny this based on Exodus 12:2 which
says:
“This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it is first of the months of the year.”
The
context of this verse speaks about the celebration of the Feast of
Unleavened Bread which falls out in the First Month. In light of this
verse, the Rabbis could not deny that the first day of the First Month
was a biblical New Years. But in the cultural context of Babylonia,
where Akitu was celebrated as New Years twice a year, it made perfect
sense that Yom Teruah could be a second New Years even though it was in
the Seventh Month.
In
contrast to Babylonian paganism, the Torah does not say or imply that
Yom Teruah has anything to do with New Years. On the contrary, the Feast
of Sukkot (Booths), which takes place exactly two weeks after Yom
Teruah, is referred to in one verse as “the going out of the year”
(Exodus 23:16). This would be like calling January 15 in the modern
Western calendar “the going out of the year”. the Torah would not
describe Sukkot in this manner if it intended Yom Teruah to be
celebrated as a New Years.
Some
modern Rabbis have argued that Yom Teruah is actually referred to as
Rosh Hashanah in Ezekiel 40:1, which describes a vision that the prophet
had, “At the beginning of the year (Rosh Hashanah) on the tenth of the
month”. In fact, Ezekiel 40:1 proves that the phrase "Rosh Hashanah"
does not mean “New Years”. Instead, it retains its literal sense of “the
head of the year” referring to the First Month in the Torah calendar.
The 10th day of Rosh Hashanah in Ezekiel 40:1 refers to the 10th day of
the First Month.
Yom Teruah is mentioned in the following biblical passages:
-
"And Yehovah spoke unto Moses saying, Speak to the Children of Israel saying, In the Seventh month on the first of the month will be a day of rest (Shabbaton) for you, a Remembrance Shouting, a holy convocation. You shall do no work and you will bring a fire sacrifice to Yehovah." Leviticus 23:23-25
-
"And in the Seventh month on the first of the month will be a holy convocation for you; you shall do no work, it will be a Day of Shouting for you..." Numbers 29:1-6
Q: What about Leviticus 25:9?
A: Some
people have argued that Yom Teruah should be considered New Years
because it is the beginning of the Sabbatical year. However, the Torah
does not say that Yom Teruah is the beginning of the Sabbatical year and
all indications are that the Sabbatical year begins on the 1st day of
the First Month. The Torah does say the following:
“And you shall pass a shofar of blasting in the Seventh Month on the tenth of the month; on the Day of Atonement, you shall pass a shofar throughout all your land.” (Leviticus 25:9)
This
verse is saying that a shofar should be used to announce the arrival of
the Jubilee year, the 50th year in the Sabbatical system. It does not
say that the Jubilee begins on the Day of Atonement, only that the
impending arrival of the Jubilee year is announced on the Day of
Atonement. The shofar is to be passed throughout the land on Yom Kippur
of the 49th year, six months before the beginning of the coming Jubilee
year. This interpretation is supported by the immediate context in
Leviticus 25. Verse 8 says to count forty nine years, verse 9 says to
pass the shofar throughout the land, and verse 10 says to proclaim the
50th year as the Jubilee. This shows that the shofar announcing the
coming Jubilee in verse 9 is passed through the land before the Jubilee
is actually proclaimed in verse 10.
Q: Isn’t the Seventh Month the beginning of the agricultural cycle?
A: In the Torah the middle
of the Seventh Month is actually the end of the agriculture cycle,
specifically of the grain cycle. In the Land of Israel, grains are
planted in Autumn and harvested in Spring. The new agricultural cycle
would not actually begin until the plowing of the fields. This would not
take place until the first light rains which moisten the ground enough
to be broken by iron and wooden plows. In the Land of Israel, this could
be as early as the middle of the Seventh Month but is usually in the
Eighth Month or later. By the above logic, the Eighth Month should be
considered the beginning of the year, not the Seventh Month.
1 Zvi Cahn, The Rise of the Karaite Sect,
New York 1937, pages 98–101. Cahn’s central thesis is that the refusal
of rabbinical leaders to repudiate the deep-rooted Babylonian paganism
that had infiltrated Babylonian Judaism led to the rise of the Karaite
back-to-the-Bible movement in the early Middle Ages. In this context,
Cahn gives a detailed list of various pagan influences in rabbinical
Judaism.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Friday, September 15, 2017
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Monday, September 11, 2017
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Friday, September 8, 2017
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Yirmeyahu to the Christian Churches
"See, you are trusting in false words, which do not profit -
stealing, murdering, and committing adultery, and swearing falsely, and burning incense to Ba'al,
and walking after other mighty ones you have not known. (7:8-9)
"And you came and stood before Me in this house which is called by My Name, and said, 'We have been delivered - in order to do all these abominations!' (7:10)
"I shall make to cease the voice of rejoicing and the voice of gladness, the voice of the Bridegroom and the voice of the bride. For the land shall become a waste!" (7:34)
stealing, murdering, and committing adultery, and swearing falsely, and burning incense to Ba'al,
and walking after other mighty ones you have not known. (7:8-9)
"And you came and stood before Me in this house which is called by My Name, and said, 'We have been delivered - in order to do all these abominations!' (7:10)
"I shall make to cease the voice of rejoicing and the voice of gladness, the voice of the Bridegroom and the voice of the bride. For the land shall become a waste!" (7:34)
Monday, September 4, 2017
Saturday, September 2, 2017
Friday, September 1, 2017
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Friday, August 25, 2017
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Monday, August 21, 2017
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Friday, August 18, 2017
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Monday, August 14, 2017
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Friday, August 11, 2017
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Monday, August 7, 2017
Sunday, August 6, 2017
Saturday, August 5, 2017
Friday, August 4, 2017
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Monday, July 31, 2017
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Saturday, July 29, 2017
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