Can you imagine being Peter when Jesus approaches you with a wash basin and cloth, prepared to wash your tired, sore, stinky, calloused feet? A good portion of Peter’s daily work, albeit hard, used to be within the confines of a boat. But as one of Jesus chosen disciples, I imagine he had put a lot of miles on his feet that he wasn’t previously used to.
By the time Jesus knelt with a basin and cloth in John 13, Peter had likely spent years walking dusty roads across Galilee and Judea. The miles alone would have been considerable, and unlike us, he had no cushioned running shoes, moisture-wicking socks, or recovery sandals waiting at the end of the day.
I can picture Peter looking down at an Apple Watch after a ministry tour:
“Congratulations! You’ve completed 47 hiking workouts this month.”
And then Jesus kneels to wash those same tired, dust-covered feet.
It’s no wonder Peter reacted the way he did when His Master humbly bent down to do the work of a servant. “Never shall You wash my feet“, he gasped! Then comes the part where we all like to laugh at poor Peter. When Jesus tells Peter that if He doesn’t wash his feet then he doesn’t belong, Peter quickly and passionately moves in the opposite direction by essentially suggesting that Jesus give him a bath!
Have you ever wanted to please someone that badly?
But enough about Peter. I really want to draw your attention to the remarkable theme of forgiveness that I picked up in the midst of Jesus serving His disciples in this way, and yet I’ve not heard anyone preach on the correlation to that before! Read this passage with me:
12 So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
As you read verse 14, think about 1 Peter 4:8 – “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.” Can you see with me that the act of “washing feet” is a way of loving one another by extending grace, kindness, and mercy as we travel through this no doubt imperfect life?
And as you read verse 16, think of Ephesians 4:32 – “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” If Jesus Himself is willing to wash our feet (or forgive us), how much more should we be willing to wash each other’s feet (or forgive others)?
The journey is long, my friends. Can we not admit that we all get dirty feet from time to time?
Alabastersky 
7 responses to “Forgiveness (John 13)”
Religious טיפש פשט literalism sucks
The Pauline “original sin” of Adam such a bull shit model. Why? Torah spins around the central axis of justice/injustice. The “fruits” of knowlege of Good and Evil, validates that both Adam Cain and the 10 generation thereafter all pursued “evil”. But the term “evil” does not mean “sin” as the NT counterfeit substitutes for evil. The Pauline model of “Original Sin” and “Salvation”, exposes a fundamental perversion of the Torah’s choice-and-consequence framework, leading to theological and moral failure define av tuma avoda zara expressed by the pervert religions of Xtianity and Islam – both guilty of substituting “Nakba” Gods as the saviors of Israel in Egypt.
Evil has its consequences. The jealous brothers of Yosef sold their “brother” into slavery! This evil cause the House of Yaacov to go into Egyptian g’lut! The exact same theme as Adam and Noach! The latter cursed the first born son of Ham! The 6 against 6 blessings vs curses sworn at Sh’Cem by the 12 Tribes of Israel obeys the blessing curse Torah which Moshe commanded Yehoshua to do – upon bringing the chosen Cohen people into the land of Canaan. Herein defines the k’vanna of the Order of the Rabbeinu Tam tefillen.
JeZeus saves from sin – simply – bull shit. This foreign imported Nicene Creed g’lut caused – av tuma import; simply stated, has no portion with the first two Sinai commandments. Evil called sin by the NT fraud – a perversion on par with Brit called covenant by both counterfeit religions! Shalom, based upon the shabbat 3 meals, stands upon trust. Peace a noun has no direct connection to the trust verb. Hence peace a fraudulent translation of shalom.
Every generation of Humanity experiences the fundamental הבדלה which separates Good from Evil; where ‘fear of heaven’ serves as the foundation of good and no ‘fear of heaven’ serves as the foundation of evil. Despite the NT fraud, “JeZeus saves from sin”, this foundation of the Torah, introduced in the opening פרקים of Sefer בראשית, defines the essence of “acceptance of the yoke of the kingdom of heaven” metaphor. Despite the revisionist av tuma avoda zarah theologies and their טיפש פשט which worships their own ‘world to come’ Pie in the Sky alien narishkeit belief systems. Any judge who hears a case before his court while holding strong beliefs pro or con, as corrupt as if he had accepted a bribe.
The Talmud publicly repudiates the JeZeus prayer which prays to ‘our Father in heaven’. The mitzva of tzitzit, (the 3rd פרק of the ק”ש תפילה דאורייתא), the aggada in ברכות commands the mussar that mitzvot sanctify only brit Israel now living בעולם הזה; Jews visiting their buried dead, halacha commands – tuck your tzitzit into your pockets. The tohor\\\…///tumah prototype mirror of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil; the Torah נמשל for this Torah משל, akin to two branches of one tree. This archetype blue-print the counterfeit religions totally fail to grasp; tuma does not mean “SIN”.
The foreign paradigm of “Sin” perverts the Torah connection of g’lut to tumah. Both bible and koran ignore judicial injustice which fails to make fair restitution of damages as the תקון for hatred without cause, as the av tuma middot consequences of the Torah curse of g’lut. The KJT bible perverts tuma as “unclean”. The koran fails to grasp that camel a tumah animal on par with pigs. The birth of children does not make a woman “unclean”; simply because fruitful and multiply serves as the – so to speak – first born child of all wisdom\time-oriented commandments!
The tohor-tuma vision fits hand-in-glove with the blessing/curse opening Sinai commandments which all Israel (alone) accepted at Sinai; Moshe Rabbeinu in the closing Parsha of ויקרא and repeated – in further detail – in דברים; the Parsha publicly read prior to ר”ה – these two “Crowns” of oath brit לשמה מלכות responsibility. They define prophetic mussar ברית חדש understood by rabbi Yechuda as בכל לבבך\כם in the ק”ש תפילה דאורייתא, the opening paragraph – blessing and the 2nd paragraph – cursing. Whose 3rd פרק defines this mitzva as a time-oriented commandment “sworn oath/brit”. Such a Torah oath brit absolutely & most essentially entails מלכות לשמה. A king accepts responsibility for the actions of his nation.
Actions have consequences like ripples after a stone thrown into a pond. Post the Bar Kochba revolt Rome renamed Judea to Palestine-Syria, and cast the Jewish people back unto Egypt – a לאו דוקא metaphor for av tuma g’lut. Post Shoah, both church & mosque – destroyed their ‘good name’ reputations. Their bemoaning their own g’lut consequences with ‘true Xtians or Muslims blah bhah’ excuses, screams “we do not accept the consequences of our actions, made by the generations of our faith”; we have no God because our Gods proven utterly be dead. Where was JeZeus during the Shoah of European Jewry by Xtian monsters? (Europe a self proclaimed Xtian society since Constantine!) Where was Nakba Allah during post WWII repeated attempts to throw the Jews into the Sea – to complete the Nazi Shoah in the Middle East?
Both fraud faiths NT or Koran embrace inherited guilt rather than cause and effect consequences of knowledge of Good and Evil; rational consciousness of choice, despite the dogma of ‘Free Will’, shares no part with modern Nazism notions of racial DNA models. “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”, that prophet’s mussar explicitly rejected. Yehezkel instructs the נמשל that all generations must confront the Havdalah, Good/Evil -understanding: the consequences of ones’ actions either sanctifies a good name reputation or destroys and profanes a good name reputation. Declarations of faith in a theologically created abracadabra Tawhid Monotheistic Universal God do not and cannot change the consequences of unjust actions through condemnations of dead generations guilty identical crimes, committed by each and every generation their after!
A person can become tuma without “sin”, ba’al keri or metzora serve as witness. In the Book of מלכים metzora folk informed the king that the Assyrian Army had fled which immediately terminated the famine within the city, consequent to the siege. The Pauline Grace/Forgiveness dynamic has no portion in Torah faith just as brit melah and Torah common law has no portion with any church or mosque rule of law or “eirene” – granted by faith in a Hercules (Man\god) savior or some Muhammad who claim himself a prophet without wisdom how the Torah defines this key term. Prophets not mystics whose visions foresee future events. Prophets not witches whose magic speaks to the dead. The Book of Daniel not included in the NaCH prophets because even tohor mysticism such as expressed through Daniel and Zohar and Ari mysticism does not qualify as נבואה
Tzitzit do not learn from any worship of wood and stone grand Temples in Jerusalem! Tzitzit, this wisdom commandment learns from the כלל of Tents established by the Mishkan “revelation”; כלל: if a person dies under a tent – all within the tent become tumah. Covering the head with the tzitzit tallit “Amidah” interprets the k’vanna of tzitzit as mussar. The wisdom commandment of tzitzit elevates all mitzvot and halachot under this Mishkan like “tent” unto wisdom/time\oriented Torah Av commandments.
The NT “JeZeus” who “saves from sin” but allows ghetto gulags, Inquisition & shoah – simply a logical contradiction on par with the Nakba defeat of Allah whose peoples religiously affirm the Nazi Shoah as their ideal. The Calvinist dotrine of ‘predetermination’ & Lutheran ‘free will’ protestant faiths as corrupt and false as Pope Pius XII watching the Nazi SS herd the Jews of Rome to the death camps … followed up by the post war Rat-lines and pogroms! The NT’s “Original Sin” and “Salvation from Sin” model of faith – a fundamental perversion of the Torah’s “Choice and Consequence” model.
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Moshe, you’ve clearly put a lot of thought into this, and I think I understand your central point: people are accountable for their own actions and must bear the consequences of those actions.
I also agree that Scripture repeatedly speaks about human moral failure. Psalm 58 says, “The wicked are estranged from the womb”; Jeremiah writes that “the heart is deceitful above all things”; and Isaiah confesses that “all our righteousnesses are like a polluted garment.”
Where I’m trying to understand your position better is on the question of atonement. If the Torah’s model is solely choice and consequence, why does the Torah place such emphasis on כפרה (atonement)? For example, the Torah repeatedly says that the priest “shall make atonement” and the sinner “shall be forgiven.”
How do you understand the purpose of atonement within the framework you’re describing?
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ויקרא – never refers to Israel in the language “the sinner is forgiven”. Just as through the rejection of the korban of Cain and the eldest two sons of Aaron and the 250 elders the Torah rejects any and all barbeques to Heaven. A korban most fundamentally exist as a wisdom Torah commandment – also known as time-oriented commandment. The term time – not a טיפש פשט. Anymore than the בראשית Aggada of creation. What perhaps relates to Torah חכמה – the commercial “Gee I could have had a V-8. Hence time does not compare to a clock but rather chiddush-insight. For example the Reshonim scholars often referred to their commentaries made on Chumash NaCH, Siddur, Talmud and Midrashim as chiddushim. This term compares to grasping how the Front\Side/Top views of a blue-print permits the building contractor to build a 3 dimensional structure based on a 2-dimensional blue-print.
The post Golden Calf “wisdom” separates the obvious משל from the wisdom נמשל. The משל revelation of the Mishkan commands the mussar נמשל that the Oral Torah Spirits אל רחום וחנון etc (which Moshe orally heard at Horev/Sinai) function as pronouns of the Spirit Name first revealed in the first Sinai commandment. Hence the Avot did not know this chiddush Spirit but called upon אל שדי or אל as expressed through the מלאך name ישראל. The NT Greek forgeries fail to link מלאך with מלאכה – just as the sophomoric translation of the Torah fails to link Shabbat with week. The Torah commands on the Shabbat conclusion of the week that a בני ברית seed of the Avot לא תעשה מלאכה. This prophetic mussar requires making the inductive logical inference/דיוק; rest on the last day of the week instructs the נמשל that the Chosen Cohen nation dedicates the wisdom of sanctifying the tohor middot spirits within their hearts through dedication of the “so to speak korban” Yatzir HaTov within their hearts in the 6 days of Shabbat wherein מלאכה dedicated לשמה.
Its not the משל of the Golden Calf but the נמשל of translating words substituted for רוח הקודש which defines the כלל second Sinai commandment through the פרט golden calf אלהים word substitution. The Torah directly commands do not compare anything in the Heaven, Seas, or Earth unto the רוח הקודש שם השם לשמה revealed in the 1st Sinai commandment.
The revelation of the Oral Torah ה’ ה’ אל רחום וחנון ect made on Yom Kippur! T’shuva does not mean the corrupt term repentance. T’shuva learns from Moshe reminding HaShem to remember the oaths sworn to the Avot that they and they alone would father the chosen Cohen People – not Moshe. The Torah employs the term t’shuva to HaShem! On Yom Kippur HaShem annulled the vow to create the chosen Cohen people from Moshe as the father!
The Torah does not employ “forgiveness”. Rather כפר/סלח/טהר. Israel employed the משל of a stain on wool vs. a stain on cotton. Yom Kippur the 10th day after יום הזכרון. What does a Jew “remember” on ר”ה? The mussar rebuke that only keeping the culture and customs practiced by the Avot can the תולדות generations follow the ways of the Avot. For example tefillah as a mitzva from the Torah – קריא שמע, the opening p’suk does not say שמע ישראל ה’ אלהינו אחד. The Avot Avraham Yitzak and Yaacov cut the brit “ONE” to father the chosen Cohen people. Reading ONE as Monotheism an utter טיפש פשט. Hence the Sages organized the Siddur through the wisdom known as סמוכים; tefillah דרבנן adjacent to tefillah אורייתא.
The Greek/Roman NT fraud, emphasized חנון translated in Paul’s letters as σεσωσμένοι ἐκ χάριτος (or τῇ χάριτι) saved through grace. The church denies the revelation of the Oral Torah 13 middot yet promote grace! What distinguishes the wisdom k’vanna which discerns between אל … רחום … חנון? The Greek rhetoric employed through the Pauline letters never once discerns like from like – the definition of discernment. Just as Obama never in 8 years of his being President ever once defined “CHANGE”. Greek rhetoric/propaganda relies upon the fuzzy logic of the masses to define their terms of rhetoric which emotionally appeals to them.
Monotheism\Islamic tawhid violates the 2nd Sinai commandment. לשמה sent Moshe as HIS מלאכה to Egypt to judge the Gods of Egypt. Yehoshua sent likewise just as Moshe as a מלאך to judge the Gods of Canaan. The oath sworn at Gilgal “remembers” this – expressed through the Order of the Rashi tefillen. The Talmud explicitly states that only the 12 Tribes of Israel stood and accepted the revelation of the Torah at Sinai. Therefore the perversion of לשמה as a Universal God as taught in the NT and Koran texts worships other Gods/2nd Sinai commandment. Hence ONE expressed in the opening p’suk of ק”ש refers to the mussar which obligates the generations of the chosen Cohen people to “remember” the oaths sworn by the Avot wherein they cut a brit לשמה that they alone would father the Chosen Cohen people.
A PhD scholar has the skills to learn from the original textual language. This skill/wisdom discerns Primary sources from lower secondary and even low translation tertiary sources. Sole reliance upon sophomoric translations affixed to bachelor of arts degrees. A person who cannot discern the distinction between מלאכה from עבודה — like Koine Greek NT — does not merit respect. The Reshonim scholars of the Middle Ages limited their scholarship to development of פשט. But post Reshonim generations fail to grasps the inherit contradiction from Rashi P’shat on the Chumash from Rashi P’shat on the Talmud! The Baali Tosafot chief criticism on Rashi’s Talmud commentary – that he failed to prioritize that the Talmud a common law legalism which stands upon the foundation of ביניני אבות/precedents!
Rabbi Yechuda’s Mishna compiled some 70 to 75 years after the Bar Kochba disaster wherein Rome had expelled the survivors of Judea to the 4 winds of the empire and rename the province to Palestine Syria! Why did the Romans mock Jews, as did likewise their stone cravings in Rome, by linking Syria to Palestine? Had Bar Kochba “timed” the Jewish revolt together with the revolt by Jews in Alexandria Egypt and had he expelled the Roman legions from Syria – this wise generalship would have made the Roman counter attack far more difficult. Egypt served as the bread basket wherein the Caesars bribed the mobs with cheap bread!
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Hello Moshe,
Have you ever wondered if Adam and Eve may have been clothed in God’s light prior to the great fall? Although there is no verse or passage directly stating this as such, there are several examples or “hints” we may have in scripture that support the idea. Consider Moses, for example, whose face was shining when he came down from Mount Sinai. Some other passages I found (in the English bible) include Exodus 34:29-35; Daniel 2:22; Daniel 10:6. To me the idea gets even more fascinating when, in my admittedly limited knowledge of the Hebrew language, I see similarities between the word for light (אוֹר) and the word for skin (עוֹר). Perhaps it is a bit of a stretch to think that before the Fall, we had a direct connection to the Light (God Himself) and after the Fall our connection was to “Eyes” (or to our senses).
I think this conveys the idea that their senses (what they saw, heard, felt, smelled, touched) became the primary way they (and we) began to receive information. The natural and now fallen being, having been disconnected from God, now became antagonistic to the spiritual life they once enjoyed. I considered that spiritual life was visibly seen in the light that surrounded them as clothing. They would have immediately recognized they were “naked” when they were no longer clothed in God’s light. In that sense, I would say we all feel the same separation and brokenness as Adam and Eve, left in desperate need of reconnecting to the Light that once filled our spiritual senses with Truth. The death they experienced was one of spiritual disconnection.
Even still, I would agree with your premise that moral responsibility, covenantal duty, and consequences for actions are part of what it means to be created in the image of God. It is undeniably part of our being. Author E. Stanley Jones once wrote: “If we obey laws written within us, we are fulfilled; if we go against those laws, we are frustrated and if we persist, we are broken. All is Love and all is Law. God doesn’t have to punish you if you break his laws written in you. Sin and its punishment are one and the same thing. You don’t have to punish the eye for having sand in it, nor the body for having cancer in it, nor the soul for having sin in it. As Augustine said, sin and its punishment are one and the same thing. You take one and you get the other.”
By this account, perhaps we can agree that anything contrary to God’s ways creates separation from Him and runs contrary to His kingdom. It’s like a mother who tells her child, “The stove is hot, don’t touch it”. Immediately the child touches the stove and is burned. Using this example, the Kingdom written within might be one of preservation, understanding fire is hot. The “law” comes across therefore as “don’t touch the hot stove”, and the punishment is the pain felt by touching the stove and feeling the burn.
Did God make you touch the stove? No. Did He punish you for touching the stove? No. Were you punished for touching the stove? Yes. Why? Because sin and its punishment is one and the same thing.
This is why New Testament scripture tells us that the wage of sin is death. God doesn’t banish anyone to an existence without Him, we do that to ourselves by “choosing to touch the hot stove”, so to speak.
Where I think we may differ is on the question of whether humanity can ultimately restore that lost connection to God’s Light through obedience alone. As a follower of Jesus, I believe that while responsibility and consequences are real, God also provided a means of reconciliation through the Messiah. That’s why you may have heard that followers of Jesus see the law as a schoolmaster, because through it I have come to realize that I cannot fully live up to God’s holiness by my own strength. At some point in our lives, we all touch the hot stove. We all realize keeping the law in and of ourselves without that God-connection is impossible. So we all have blemishes. That is also why we believe the Son of Man came first as a sacrificial lamb to atone for our sins and will one day come again as the Lion of Judah to establish His full reign on this earth.
One last thought, there were two trees mentioned by name in the Garden: The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and The Tree of Life. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil could teach discernment, but it could not impart life. That is why I find it significant that the Tree of Life stood also in the garden – especially considering that good and evil have the same root (they are of the same tree, which makes discernment all the more important). As a follower of Jesus, I believe the Tree of Life represents the Messiah. Promises fulfilled. Reconciliation. Redemption. The physical tree on this physical earth may be hidden from our view, but the spiritual tree is something we all have access to.
Moshe, the Hebrew God – the MOST HIGH God, the LIVING God – I think we both can agree that He is such an amazing, loving, merciful, just, forgiving, long-suffering God. He sees us even when we don’t seek Him. I believe His love for you is extravagant. Though we clearly differ on the identity and role of the Messiah, I appreciate the seriousness with which you seek God and wrestle with these questions. I hope our exchange encourages both of us to continue seeking His truth.
Blessings, my friend!
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Torah commands mussar it does not teach history. Any attempt to convert mussar into history amounts to avoda zarah on par with the translation of the שם השם of the 1st Sinai commandment to אלהים JeZeus or Allah … = … Golden Calf.
Genesis Rabbah 3:6 and Talmud, Hagigah 12a. אור with עור; the Midrash explains that this light was hidden for the righteous in the World to Come. World to Come – learns from the brit cut between the pieces wherein childless Avram cut a brit to father the chosen Cohen people in all future generation/O’lam ha-Ba.
The theme of G’lut first introduced through the Aggadah of Adam’s expulsion from the Gan. The Tree of Da’at introduces the two opposing spirits within the heart of Man. A major Torah theme which קריא שמע – בכל לבבך\כם — a wisdom time-oriented commandment distinguishes oil from water two opposing Yatzirot Spirits\Yaacov and Esav wresting within the womb of Rivka. Moshe referred to the revelation of the opening first two commandments as life death, blessing curse, rule the land of Canaan with justice or return to Egypt as slaves oppressed by judicial injustice.
Evil not the same as the Xtian perversion of “sin”. Actions have consequences. Failure to rule the land of Canaan with judicial Sanhedrin courtroom justice results in g’lut no different than the theme introduced by Adam Noach in his Ark, the collapse of the Tower of Bavel, the Avot as strangers in Canaan and Israel in Egypt. Genesis Rabbah 3:6 and Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer instruct the mussar that the light created on Day 1 the blessing of righteous justice among the chosen Cohen people as the תיקון for Hatred without cause av-tumah avoda zarah.
The Xtian concept of “sin” and later Calvinist predestination of human history or the Arab/Muslim of “fate” … simply pie in the sky narishkeit. Righteous judicial common law courts which dedicate and pursue fair compensation of damages inflicted by Jews upon other Jews – stands as the Torah meaning of justice. Ohr HaGanuz and the Tikkun for hatred without cause avoda zarah the keeping of Yovel freedom to rule the land with justice. Herein the path of the oath brit cut לשמה with Avram, Yitzak and Yaacov. This concealed kabbala of light/justice first clearly revealed on P’sach when Moshe brought Israel out of Egyptian slavery.
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Alabastersky greetings
As a Zionist, consider myself an atheist praise G-d. The theology bull shit of g’lut and Goyim does not interest me any more than Goyim attempting to inform Israelis of their own living history. Simply a crock of shit for Goyim in distant lands to read translations and pretend themselves experts on subjects as alien to them personally as living on the Planet Mars!
The German Gamma Han continually demands “nuance”. Yet he quotes 17b of מגילה, divorced from its Mishna – hardly qualifies as “nuance”; but more like bobbing for apples in a barrel. The Gemara sugya – the first study of precedents to learn a depth analysis of הקורא את המגילה למפרע, לא יצא. קראהּ על פה, קראהּ תרגום, בכל לשון, לא יצא.
This first sugya a kabbalah sugya which prioritizes the 32 middot of inductive reasoning through precedent study of Rabbi Yossi Haglili – a third generation Tana, and one of the Sages of Yavneh following the Roman destruction of Herod Temple abomination. His reliance upon Chat AI only can translate words. Common law requires learning through precedents. Had he observed the Mishna which the first sugya of Gemara introduces inductive precedent comparisons to make a depth analysis of this specific Mishna – directly defines how to regard a translation to some other language.
Hence “Similarly problematic is the claim that Xtianity and Islam etc” A) they rely solely upon translations and B) Both openly deny the Oral Torah masoret! 7th Century CE measured from Ezra and the Men of the Great Assembly over a 1000 years distanct! By the Hebrew year of 2448 Jewish masoret places the event of the Sinai revelation. The Jewish count usually aligns the Ezra’s arrival about the Hebrew year of 3408. In the traditional Jewish timeline, this aligns with roughly 358 BCE (though secular history often places Artaxerxes I later, around 458 BCE, the traditional count shortens the Persian period). The timeline of 350–400 years after the First Temple’s destruction (traditionally dated to 3338 / 422 BCE in the Jewish calendar, though secular history says 586 BCE), consistent with the traditional view that the Second Temple stood for roughly 420 years. Hence approximately 900 to 1000 years.
The first word of the Torah בראשית contains ברית אש. What’s the Fire of the Brit? The 2nd Parsha of ספר בראשית — נח. Mesechta Sanhedrin learns the cause of the floods to sworn false oaths. ברית understood as “alliance”; the 12 Tribes forged a brit alliance to establish the 1st Republic. In similar vein the United States and the USSR — both Republics as were the ancient Greek Islands! To swear a Torah brit requires שם ומלכות based upon the precedent of blessings (a תולדות of oaths). His reliance upon Greek deductive logic rejected by the lights of Hanukkah.
Mishnah Megillah 2:1, because the opening sugya develops the Mishnah’s rule that reading the Megillah למפרע (“out of order”) does not fulfill the obligation, and that reading it orally, in translation, or in another language may likewise fail to fulfill it. The Mishnah – therefore part of the interpretive precedent, not merely background. His “shock” that the church abomination counterfeit detests the Oral Torah codified in the Talmud does not stand before the 1242 public burning of all Talmud hand-written manuscripts across France!
The wisdom of פרדס he does not have any education therein. The Bereshit–brit esh observation introduced aint a letter-based derash but rather a רמז – words within words! Like ראש בית ב’ ראשית which the Vulgate Latin and later vulgar Protestant bible translations totally ignore. Furthermore Aramaic very close to Hebrew. The Targum Onkelos if you don’t know the Hebrew word a person can count the Aramaic word for word 1:1 precision. The Greek and Latin language do not resemble Hebrew Aramaic any more than JeZeus has Yichus or the Goy Muhammad a prophet. Xtianity’s rejection of rabbinic culture and custom started way back with the letters of Paul which predate the Gospels themselves!
The cultures and customs of Greece and Rome share nothing with Hebrew culture and customs. Agape “love” does not mean the love contained within the language of קריא שמע, any more than the translation of covenant implies even remotely the oath alliance obligations of cutting a brit as a wisdom time-oriented Torah commandment.
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Moshe,
Thank you for taking the time to explain your position. I think I understand your central point, even if I do not agree with it. You place great weight upon Hebrew, Oral Torah, masoret, precedent, and the living continuity of Jewish tradition. You see translation as insufficient and often misleading when separated from that tradition. I can appreciate why you would feel strongly about that.
At the same time, I think there is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God.
You speak often of history, language, culture, precedent, covenant, justice, and interpretation. Those things certainly matter. But I cannot escape the reality that the living God is greater than the sum of any tradition’s knowledge of Him. Isaiah saw seraphim crying “Holy, Holy, Holy” before the throne. If these heavenly beings continually behold new facets of His glory and never exhaust the wonder of who He is, then it seems to me that none of us, however learned, can presume to have reached the end of that knowledge.
I should also clarify something. If part of your concern is that I approach these questions from the same mindset as those who hate Israel or the Jewish people, then we are speaking past one another. I do not. I believe there is a meaningful distinction between Allah and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I have no interest in the antisemitism, hostility, or violence that so often masquerades as religious conviction. Whatever our theological differences may be, I do not stand with those who curse the Jewish people. Rather, I recognize the Jewish roots of the faith I hold and the unique role Israel occupies within the biblical story.
As I read your words, I see great passion for texts, tradition, language, precedent, and interpretation. Yet I find myself asking a different question: where does intimacy with God enter the picture? Not knowledge about Him, but knowledge of Him. Not merely the study of revelation, but the experience of being transformed by it. That is the question that ultimately matters most to me.
You have suggested more than once that Gentiles who read translated texts inevitably misunderstand. Perhaps often they do. But I would also suggest that knowledge is not established merely through scholarship, nor solely through ancestry, language, or tradition. Truth must ultimately be received. Revelation cannot be inherited. There is a difference between knowing of the Messiah and receiving a revelation of who He is.
That may be where our paths diverge most clearly. You emphasize covenant, law, precedent, and tradition. I see faith as primary. Abraham “believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness” long before circumcision entered the picture. For that reason, I understand the descendants of Abraham not merely as those connected through bloodline, but also those who share Abraham’s faith.
One question I continue to wrestle with concerns ancestry and covenant. Rebekah was the mother of Jacob, but she was also the mother of Esau. If descent alone is the defining characteristic, what distinguishes one from the other? To me, Scripture consistently points beyond genealogy to a matter of faith and response to God.
Perhaps that difference is too foundational for us to reconcile through discussion. I do not say that dismissively. Rather, I say it honestly.
So let me ask one final question, not as a challenge but as a genuine reflection: What is it that you believe you can offer me that surpasses what I have already found in Christ?
I suspect we may not persuade one another, and that’s alright. I appreciate the exchange, and I think it is best that we leave it there.
Peace,
Lisa
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