The Garden Within | EKEV עֵקֶב - Portion 46

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Teachers of Torah have coined the Hebrew term PaRDeS (פרדס – a word literally meaning “garden” or "orchid") to refer to a four-tiered system of biblical interpretation, which reveals that each word, verse, and story in the Bible could be simultaneously understood on four different levels.  

Through this year-long course, we will explore the very words of God from these levels of the garden.  The name The Garden Within was chosen for this teaching series because it adopts the PaRDeS system of learning and because it delights in the spiritual pleasure through reaching new understandings and being pierced by lightning flashes of the intellect. The pleasure gained, of course, also refers to the nearness we feel to God when learning His Word.

One of the primary goals of The Garden Within is to demonstrate that the “stories” in the Torah are not merely one-time occurrences, temporal incidents undergone by specific individuals long ago. Rather these stories are archetypal in nature, reflecting or representing various physical and spiritual energies ever present in all aspects of reality and within each and every person.  That is, the Torah is deeply personal and speaks directly to each individual reader for where they are in their life.  So, come, take a walk with God in the Garden of the Torah!

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Good evening, everyone, heir of Tov. Welcome to the Garden Within. And as we continue our journey on through the Torah in its fifty-four portions, uh in the midst of Deuteronomy. So we're getting close to the end, but still got a little bit of ways to go as we spend our time in that last 37 days of the life of Moses. Uh so um before we uh get started with the blessing and so forth, I just want to make you aware of a couple of things that you may be interested in. One of them is uh a Bible I recently got for um devotional purposes that I really enjoy, and I think you might enjoy it as well. Uh, it's put out by Thomas Nelson. It's called the uh tracing edition. Um and what's really cool about it is, and you can come up after class uh to see it more in detail, it has in real light print, kind of like the New Testament, but then you, as you would imply, you trace it. So I've done like the first five or six chapters of Matthew. Um and you can do a couple of things when you do that, like you can use all black pen like I'm doing, or they have a couple of suggestions, like you could say, like they give a bunch of passages that are about hope. You could say those are gonna be green, and passages about grace are gonna be red, and passages about the Holy Spirit, you know, will be purple. Uh, or you can find all kinds of guides that can you can color code, or you can just be artistic and say, you know, this page I'm gonna do a little bit of, you know, red and purple and pink or whatever. Uh you can divide that up. Um, but what I found doing it, uh, you know, reading is one way to comprehend, uh, hearing it is another way to comprehend, you know. I found like kind of reading it, saying it while you're writing it is just another level of learning the text. And it's amazing the little things you you just the little details you pick up when you're writing it. And then it also for me gave me a great appreciation for the scribes of old when that's how you know manuscripts are passed down and so forth. If you do this, you will need um a micron pen. It's 0.3. You can get them in colors, those are the black ones. Uh lay pen is the best Bible pen. But this is like um 60 grade paper, so no bleed through or anything. But if you're looking for like a nice devotion, uh again, it it takes, at least for me, it takes a solid five, five, ten minutes to do a page, right? So you're you're kind of invested in in the text. Um and again, you can let your art, if you have an artsy side, you can kind of let that flare because these come in all the colors. I I'm just doing straight black, uh, kind of in Deuteronomy, we'll eventually get there. Uh, all the kings, and essentially we also know the priest as well. We're always instructed, they always had to write their own Torah. They always had to write their own Bible. And I often thought, and when I was in seminary, uh, we should have had to write a Bible. You know, uh it's just it's a different experience when you're writing it. So if you want to come check that out again, um, put out by Thomas Nelson, just called the Tracing Edition. But you can come check that out as well as look at the pen, what the name of it is, but you want 0.3. Uh even if you don't get this brand, you'll want a 0.3 millimeter uh pen. Uh it works really well, but you can check that out. And then also wanted to make you aware uh that I have a new book out by the charcoal fire. Uh it is uh kind of in uh the Israel series, if you will. Uh there's a site in Israel known as Tapta, uh, and that is where uh in Luke 5, it's where Jesus called his first uh disciples, including Peter. It's also at the end of the Gospel where Jesus appears in John 21, and his third resurrection appears to them and recommissions Peter. Uh so it's a hundred-page deep dive into John chapter 21 based on uh that particular geographic site. And so it looks at um uh for those who'd be interested, yes, it does have an appendix that is dedicated solely to, solely to uh the um mystery of 153. So if you ever want to know why 153 fish, what's significant about 153? Um I took a 25-page article and made it into six pages for you. Uh, but that's in there. Also talks about when um the kind of the repetition of three, it's not just uh three times does Jesus say, Do you love me? And the three responses, there's multiple threes going on in John 21, um, including that being the third resurrection appearance. And and so I talk about, well, what's what's John doing as an author trying to emphasize these threes? So it's a nice deep dive into John chapter 21. Um, so if you're interested in that, uh, that is also available, but again, you can check both of those things out after class. All right, well, let's now get started with the blessing, and then we'll dive into our text. Let's pray. Baruchita's denai el aheinu mele koelam, a shakiti shanobisvita vese vano lesok bidivre Torah. Blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with his commandments and has commanded us to be immersed into the words and the matters of Torah. Amen. All right, so this evening brings us to the 46th portion of the Torahs, 54 portions, number 46. Uh, it's known as a Kev. Uh Kev covers Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 12, goes through chapter 11, verse 25. And a Kev essentially uh it means because in Hebrew. Uh, and so this, the 46th Torah reading, is also the third portion of Deuteronomy, uh emphasizes Israel's blessings that come a Kev. They come because uh they listen to, they guard, they keep, they revere God's covenant and God's connections. And so that's what Moses is trying to prepare them for as they are going to cross over. He says, when you cross over, you're gonna have these temptations uh to begin to take credit for being in this land yourself, uh, that you're the one that defeated the enemies, or you're the one that you know led this uh kind of settlement and so forth. And he says the real key to your success is gonna be you staying connected to the covenant uh that God has made with you. So in the portion of Kev, Moses urges Israel to obey God's commandments, to stay connected to them, to guard them, to keep them, protect them. Uh and again, that uh electrical outlet kind of imagery, the result of that, uh the natural result of doing that is what we would call blessings, right? And then he also therefore warns that if you break covenant, that that has consequences as well, uh, that we would call judgment or curses. Uh Moses recounts God's wilderness provision, including the manna, uh, the fact that their clothes did not wear out in those 40 years, and that all of Israel's victories come by God's power, not by their own power, not by their own righteousness, not by anything that they do. It's solely by God. And so Moses then recalls the golden calf incident, uh, his intercessions, and the renewal of the covenant with a second set of tablets, and he calls Israel to love and to serve the Lord with their whole heart, because again, success in the land is contingent upon this relationship. The portion of Kev also contains the well-known description of the seven species of the land of Israel. That would be wheat and barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. And we'll talk a little bit about that. In fact, uh, that's gonna kind of give an inspiration to a couple of our topics tonight is uh the species of the land. So that's the summary of Ekev and where it's covered at in Deuteronomy. So let's uh dive in a little bit and talk about it. So photosynthesis is a parable for life. So in Deuteronomy, oops, chapter 8, verses 7 and 8, it reads this: For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams of water, of springs and underground water flowing forth from valley and in mountain, a land of wheat and barley and grape and fig and pomegranate, a land of olive oil and honey. And we're gonna see uh maybe that will be a little bit of a myth buster for you. When you read honey in the Old Testament, it's not honey made from bees. It is date honey, honey from the dates. And if you ever visit Israel, you'll know why that is the case, because that is a date palms galore everywhere, and so it is the natural way they're going to have honey. All right, so here the Torah, uh, as it often does, describes the land of Israel as this beautiful, wonderful place, a land flowing with milk and honey. And Rashi again explains in his Kumish that the honey referred to here is not made by bees, but from dates, because it's one of the unique seven fruits designated by God as native to the land of Israel. The date is a holy food in the Bible. Now, the Hebrew word for date is Tamar, T-A-M-A-R. And when you take the Hebrew word for date, Tamar, and you add up its letters, you do the gamatria for it, it equals 640, which is the same numerical value as the Hebrew word shemesh, which is the Hebrew word for sun. And so when you're thinking from a Hebraic mindset, when you're thinking like good Hebrew thinkers, right, you know that words that have the same gamatria that they relate to one another. And so date and sun connect untellingly. Date palms only grow well if they are exposed to a great deal of intense sunlight. In the photosynthetic process, green plants and various other organisms they transform sunlight into chemical energy and ultimately food. One of the byproducts of this process is oxygen, right? That's how we get to breathe. It's released into the air, and this oxygen, of course, is crucial not only for us as human beings to breathe, but for the atmospheric balance necessary to exist on planet Earth. Another byproduct is the fruit of the tree itself. On the glycemic scale, which measures natural sugar content in foods, the amount of sugar immediately available to someone who eats a particular food, dates are at the very top of this list. And like all food produced by plants, the sweetness of the date has its ultimate source in the amount of light from the sun that it receives. So the process of photosynthesis provides a wonderful analogy to the ideal spiritual process that we as human beings should be engaged in. And so this is a lesson my rabbi taught us, and my teacher taught us, and uh to kind of look at how, as below, so above, that all of these things that we discover in science and so forth, they actually are revealing to us deeper spiritual truths, and so he used photosynthesis as an example of that. Human beings should integrate the light, but the light of God into their lives, using it as a burst of energy and a life source of life force to motivate their every thought, speech, and action. This divine light shines through every point of space and in every moment of time, but it's especially channeled through the Holy Scriptures and in intentional connections made with God through the means that He has given to us to connect to Him, so His Word and His sacraments. And those among us who are spiritually mature are conscious of God's presence at every moment in our lives, and how it constantly transforms divine light into the energy that fuels the lives of holiness and purity. So by just living their lives, mature individuals, spiritually mature individuals, have the opportunity to transform the world and influence those who come into contact with them. Teaches about a crucial spiritual process called Hamtechat Hadanim, and that is called sweetening the judgments. Conscious effort and prayer can transform any adverse circumstance which seems to possess only the potential for anguish, strife, or negativity, and to some positive experience. By recognizing the potential good, the possible rectification hidden in circumstances, we are able through the light that we receive to sweeten them. And so, according to the sages, the land of Israel, it was referred to as a land flowing with milk and honey because that alludes to the fact that the hardship necessary to acquire the land contains a sweetness ever ready to be revealed to those who undertake the spiritual path of sweetening the judgments. And so again, it's kind of like looking at one of the species, the native species to Israel, one of the holy fruits of the land, the date, and to see how it uses light to grow and to produce sweet fruit, but also to provide what is necessary for the atmosphere around it to be whole, you know, good and transformed and maintain a balance. So the same process happens to us, and like a spiritual photosynthesis, when we receive the light of God and we allow it to sweeten us, then we're able to sweeten that around us. 100 blessings a day. This is an interesting part of the portion. This part of the portion is very much um embedded in traditional Jewish life. Um, and it's it's based on what's known as a darash. So, right in the garden within, we're looking at that Hebrew word pardais for garden, an acronym for the levels of scripture, Peshat, Remez, Darash, and Sod. Well, there's a darash uh based on Deuteronomy 10 uh that has deeply, deeply impacted uh spirituality. Uh and I think it's something, again, as we try to live in the time, uh, live within that week's reading, I think it has a potential practical application for you, something for you to try as a spiritual discipline uh perhaps this week. So long ago, as far back as anyone can trace things, the sages instituted a practice of reciting 100 blessings a day. So in Eastern thought and in historic Torah thought in Judaism and so forth, and from a first century Galilean perspective, people did not bless things. They blessed God. So before they ate a meal, they would not bless the food, like we tend to do in the West. They would bless God for giving them the food, right? And if they bought a new home and they were very gracious and thankful for that new home, they would not bless the home, they would bless God for allowing them to have that home, right? And so that's what it means to bless God. And so they it begins with a very traditional formula. You've heard it every Torah class, right? Baruch, aloheinu mele koilam. All right, blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe. And then there would be whatever you're wanting to bless God for. And there are standard blessings for just about everything you can imagine, both good and bad things, because as Job says, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, but blessed be the name of the Lord. And so there's blessings when you hear good news, there's blessings when you hear bad news, right? Uh one of them, like if you hear a bad news, you would say, Baruchat and Ilahinum Malkalam, um, you know, Diane Hamet. Blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe, uh, who is the true judge, right? That you know what's going on, you'll bring justice out of this, you know things that maybe we don't know, but you see the injustice of it, you'll be the true judge. In the end, you will you will get the scales balanced, right? Um, there's blessings when you see rainbows, there's blessings for when you um a baby's born. I mean, you could there's blessings before not just food, but like there's blessings when it's the foods from the ground, when food's from a tree, you know, you name it. Okay, so it's this all designed so that at least a hundred times a day you are blessing God. Uh and they derive this teaching from the Bible, but not because there's a verse that says, bless God a hundred times a day, but they looked at Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 12, and it says, And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear your rah? We'll talk about that word, but have fear, your rah, and ah, respect God, your God, the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways and to love him. And you think, how in the world did they get from Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 12, that the Bible's telling us to bless God a hundred times a day? Well, it's because they are doing a word play, which again is very normal, very traditional, very a very accepted practice in Hebraic thought. Um and so they noted that the phrase, what does the Lord your God require of you? It begins with the Hebrew word ma, which is the Hebrew word for what. But remember, Hebrew is a word that doesn't really have vowels, just consonants. And so you can read ma differently. Like if you just have the letters DG, right? You could read dog, you could read dig, you could read dog, right? You could read dag, that's even a word, right? You just have the consonants. So they would read ma as ma, meh. Slight, just slight different intonation of the throat. But that word doesn't mean what, it means one hundred. And so it changed the meaning of the verse to not what does the Lord your God require of you, it changed it to say 100 is what the Lord your God requires of you. And if you want to see the detailed description of that, it's in the Talmud, it's in uh full it's in Menochot folio 43b. Now, since every blessing is essentially an expression of gratitude and thanks for God, for his kindness, or for his judgment, uh, or for his sovereignty, again, in those situations where it's not great news, or even when we we um hear sad news and so forth, it's still an acknowledgement of God's sovereignty, right? And you're still blessing God as the as the one who's in control. A hundred daily blessings encourages a person to constantly recognize how grateful he or she should be to their God. It's a way to kind of keep God's presence ever before you. Um if you think about it like on one hand, if you're awake for 16 hours, a hundred is not that much, but you'd be surprised. Uh if you think about it, like you get in your car and you arrive at your destination, you bless God for the safe travel, right? You go When you have a meeting with someone and the meeting is over, you bless God for that opportunity for the engagement with that individual. But what it's doing is making you aware, right? It's creating what in modern terminology would be, um, but we would say it's a kosher form of it. It's creating mindfulness for you, right? And it's your life will be different if you're a mindful person. Mindfulness is very important when it's appropriate when it's done appropriately. And this is one of the ways you can do it appropriately. Such consistent acknowledgement of God's role in your life creates a constant connection. It keeps it established, it keeps it maintained. It's also important to note that the Hebrew word to be in awe of, to be in fear of, it's the Hebrew word ira, Y-I-R-A-H, which equals, in its gematria, you add up its letters, 216. The aspect of Yerah is considered to be the inner dimension of what is known as Gavorah, that is might and strength. And this is always in the Bible and in Hebraic thought associated with the patriarch Isaac. And interestingly, the numerical value of Gavorah equals 216, which is the value of Urah. And I mention this because there's an essential connection not only between Isaac and the word Yerah, but also the number 100 is connected to Isaac as well. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. The birth of Isaac was the ultimate fulfillment of God's command to Abraham to Lechlcha, right? To go. And literally, as we've talked about, it means to go to yourself. Leave everything behind, leave everything you know behind, leave your family, leave your neighborhood, leave your country, leave your language, leave everything that's near and dear to you and that grounds you. God says, Lake Lekah in Hebrew, one of the names of the portions from Genesis, right? Go, go to yourself. And Abraham attempted to accomplish what was completed, and he saw this in a fulfillment with Isaac. And so we can learn that children are a manifestation in this world of our own truest self. And later, when Isaac was on his own in the Torah, it says in Genesis 26, 12, Isaac sowed in that land and he found that a year a hundredfold, and God blessed him. He planted in that year and received a hundred measures in return. And this blessing of receiving a yield of one hundred and a cents is the spiritual source of the sages reading the above verse as an allusion to the importance of reciting one hundred blessings a day. We plant the seeds of thanksgiving and divine praise, and we receive back a hundredfold. There is a tradition regarding the four letters of Isaac's name, and in Hebrew, Isaac's name has four letters. The first letter, the Yud, has a numerical value equivalent to ten. And that represents the ten tests of Abraham as father. The second letter of Isaac's name in Hebrew is the Zadi, which equals ninety. That represents the age of Sarah when she gave birth to Isaac. The third letter in his name is Ket. It equals eight, symbolizing the eighth day of his circumcision, as Isaac was the first Hebrew to be circumcised on the eighth day, as God had commanded Abraham. And the final letter in Isaac's name is a kuf, which equals 100, which is the age of Abraham when Isaac was born. And so, in the light of all of this, I would humbly suggest that the letter kuf in Isaac's name also represents God's blessings to him of reaping a hundredfold. So, this week of Ekev, here's what my challenge to you would be: to try to take the energy from the Word of God, to apply it to your life, to apply it in the way that it's been understood, including by those of the first century Galilee, namely the apostles and your Messiah. Set a goal. Try to bless God 100 times a day for the next week. And see if you can do it. You know, it may help if uh you have a little rope with 100 marbles or knots on it and you can kind of slide him down. But try to do it, not in a legalistic way. I don't mean to do it in that way, but try to bless God a hundred times a day. See if you can find a reason to bless God a hundred times a day, right? You know, maybe it's your spouse did something kind for you, so you bless God for a kind spouse, or you see someone doing something that touches your heart, you bless God for that. Like be conscious, be aware, be mindful. Can you find a hundred reasons to kind of pause momentarily and either verbally out loud? That would be the preferred way, if you can. You know, if you're in the middle of the doctor's office or something, maybe don't do it out loud there and be might be and you know put in an institution for it. But if you can say it out loud, otherwise think it. But literally say the phrase, blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe, and then whatever it is, who has given me this fruit from the tree as I am about to eat an orange, right? Or who's given me the this fruit of the ground as I'm about to cut open my baked potato, uh, who who has given us the beauties of creation as I see a nice blue sky, or um, you know, in fact, the there is a blessing even when you maybe tonight, when you hear thunder or you see rain or you smell rain. There's specific blessings for it. Uh, one of them is blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe, who has given us the wonders of creation, right? You just are in awe of like the cycle of things that water comes down and it nourishes the earth or whatever cleanses the area. But try to bless God a hundred times a day and do it for a full week. And then if you're able to do it, whether it's journaling or just kind of thinking about it and meditating on it or having a discussion with someone about it, see if it made a difference in your day. Like, because after you've done it seven times, it'd be a little more ingrained, a little more habit formed, right? A hundred times by your six hundredth time that might be habit forming. See if it changed how you approached your day, see if it changed how you responded to things during your day, and so forth. Like, what did blessing God a hundred times a day do? How did it change anything? So that would be a challenge for you this week that would be in line with what's written in the Torah this week and as it's been practiced throughout the ages. Forgetting and remembering. Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 8. A land of wheat and barley, fine and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees or olives, you can translate this, and honey. So I'm gonna teach you a little bit about the tradition of, and again, this is part of being mindful. It's again, Judaism, when I teach eighth-grade religion here, you know, one of the first questions I ask them is what modern day country, because the it was called Judah in his day, what modern day country was Jesus born in? And usually they're pretty quick and they're like, Israel. I'm like, great job, great job. So then I say, so, you know, that would imply Jesus is Jewish, right? And they're like, they think about it, like, yeah, they they they kind of figure that out. And then I ask him this question what continent is Israel located in? The answer is Asia. So then I have them repeat out loud, Jesus is Asian. It freaks you out, doesn't it? But he was. And you need to know that about your Bible. It's an Asian book. It's written on the continent of Asia. So it's Eastern thinking, not Western thinking. And so things like mindfulness and letting that be part of your spirituality is embedded in the text. So I'm gonna share with you uh, so that means like things like being mindful of what you eat, how you eat, including by the blessing before and after. Deuteronomy will tell you you don't bless before you eat, though it's never anything wrong with that. You bless after you eat. That's even in our catechism, by the way. Uh, you make that blessing. So there's your two. Every time you eat, you got two right there, towards your hundred. Um, but part of being mindful of it, they looked at these special species here that are highlighted as unique to Israel. That God is, He points out more than once these particular species. And so I'm going to share with you um how to be mindful of olives, but what the deeper teaching. It's always deeper, it's always more than what it seems about on the surface. So, one of the special fruits of the land of Israel is olives, right? Olive trees are everywhere. In fact, the Garden of Gethsemane was an olive garden, right? So that's where Jesus uh spent a lot of his time. Um, the Talmud teaches a very unique quality of olives. In the Hebraic mindset, again, I'm not telling you this is a true scientific fact. I don't care if it's a true scientific fact. It's what's taught, and then you gotta pull back. You're in the garden now, you now know to look beyond the surface, right? It's pointing to something else. So in Hebraic thought, eating olives leads to forgetfulness. Okay? Eating whole olives leads to forgetfulness. However, eating olive oil leads to good, strong memory. Go figure that, right? When we're gonna talk about that. So here again is where you're beginning to learn, which is very fortune cookie-esque, very Eastern. Eating an olive makes you forgetful, but eating the fruit of that olive, the inside, the oil of that olive, will cause you to remember. How in the world, what is going on? What's the real point of going on here? So, based on this idea, the advice given when eating olives, if you're Eastern, if you're Middle Eastern, you always pour olive oil on your olives. You always eat olives that have been placed in olive oil. Right? If you've ever wondered why that's if you ever eat Middle Eastern food and you get it's authentic, your olives have olive oil on them. Now you know why. Okay, this is part of the culture. That way, the olive oil counters any forgetfulness the olive gives you. Now, this has been passed on, but it's been passed on because of the lesson. Here's the lesson: eating olives represents the outside manifestation of the fruit, you know, whereas olive oil is produced when you extract its inner essence. And again, this is why in the Garden of Gethsemane it's tied directly to what Jesus experiences there. Garden of Gethsemane, Gethsemane means an olive press in Hebrew. Gat Sha meen, the press the place of the pressing of the olive. That's what it means in Aramaic. An olive went through three pressings so that you could get the purest form of the oil, the inner essence, right? And in the first century world, yeah, they used olive oil for soap, like you still can. In fact, I just got a shipping from Israel two days ago on Saturday of olive oil soap. It's great stuff. And they used it for that. They used it for food. But in the first century world, it was most connected to light. They didn't have electricity. So their lamps were olive oil. You're in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus goes through a crushing, an olive crushing. That's why threes are wild in the story of Gethsemane. Because it's Matthew's way, if you look at Matthew's gospel especially, it's his way of saying, you know, he he asks the Father three times, take this cup from me. He asks his disciples three times to go away and pray with him. He asks three disciples to do that, Peter, James, and John, right? Three, three, three, three. There's threes all in there because it's emphasizing he's being crushed so that what's inside of him would be released, ultimately light, right? Light for the world. Uh, even to the point that that's why it describes him as sweating blood in Gethsemane. It's drawing that out. It's all intimately tied to this. And so just the olive itself, just what we'll call like the fruit, right, of the tree. Uh, eating that, that's that represents the outside. Olive oil is what comes when you extract what's on the inside, its true essence. The terms for an outside and an inside reality in Hebrew and in chasidut is kizonuit and pinimuit. When taking those ideas and applying them to learning Torah and the Word of God, we deduce that learning on the outside, that is, learning superficially on the Kizunut level, it will not penetrate our consciousness. It will not benefit us very much. It will, in fact, lead us to actually forget any scripture that we actually have learned. That's why, by the way, if you've ever seen the phenomenon of someone who goes to church like every Sunday and they've gone to church every Sunday for their whole life and seemingly have never picked up an ounce of biblical knowledge or don't even know the books of the Bible, it's because they've only been eating the olive. They've only been hitting the outside, they've only been staying on the surface. And when you do that, it's very counterproductive because it puts you in a state of false security. But nothing's penetrated your conscience, nothing's changed your life, nothing's transformed you. There's no inner essence there. It's just superficiality. On the other hand, when we learn on a deep inside Penamut level, it's much easier to remember because it properly integrates and becomes part of us. When we're willing to roll up our sleeves, when we're willing to study the scriptures, when we're willing to listen to teachers, when we're willing to engage it, and when we're not afraid of hearing things that we've never heard before, and we're willing to explore it, and we're willing to challenge it, and we're willing to challenge the status quo, when we're willing to push, right? Then we learn more and we know more, and it becomes part of who we are, including on our inner essence. The same concept is applied to how we experience reality in general. When we are unfocused, when we lack concentration, and when we relate to others on a superficial, less than serious manner, our experiences in life will make little impact on our emotions or our inner consciousness. And that's why you can say, I've known someone for 30 years, but I don't know them at all. It's because you never broke past the surface. But when we're fully engaged in the moment, experiences have a deep imprint in our mind, our heart, and our soul. So the lesson of the olive is when you engage the Word of God, when you study the scriptures, be sure to put some olive oil on your olives. Self-righteousness. Deuteronomy 9, verse 4. It says, Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them out before you because of my righteousness, the Lord has brought me into possess the land. So here Moses earnestly warns Israel against feeling some kind of self-righteousness. He warns them that once they go over the Jordan River, once they enter into the land, once they enter into Jericho, once they begin to experience success that God is bringing to them, and as God is fulfilling his covenant to them, He warns them, do not attribute that success to your own merits. He tells them again in Deuteronomy 9, verse 6, it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, because you are a stubborn people. Right? And so, in order to prove his point, Moses then says, Look, I'm going to bring up some not-so happy history for you guys to kind of keep you humble. That's what Moses is wanting to do. He's wanting to keep them humble. And so, to keep them humble, he brings up the sin of the golden calf, as well as other occasions in the wilderness where the people sinned against God. And he recounts how he had to fast on their behalf, how he had to plead to God for their forgiveness. And he retells how God in his mercy relented and did not punish them as their deeds so much deserved. If not for Moses' intercession and the atonement on their behalf, Israel would have never survived the journey from Egypt. In other words, Moses was kind of saying, and again, in this very Paul, St. Paul fashion of, I don't like to brag, but I'm pretty awesome, kind of fashion, right? That's how Paul does it. Like, I don't mean to brag, but here's 16 pages in Romans about how cool I am, right? Moses is saying, you have me to thank for your deliverance so far. God was going to smite you so many times before. Let me tell you all the ways you messed up and all the ways that would have gotten you in trouble. And I'm the one that pulled you out. And now that I'm not going to be with you, remember these lessons so that you do not become self-righteous. And so Moses then goes on to remind them that the Lord was giving them the land of Canaan to fulfill his covenant obligations to the patriarchs. There could be no talk of merit and righteousness on their behalf. This was God fulfilling his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In some ways, Moses was saying, it ain't even about you guys. It's about the greatness of God and how God always keeps his promises. This is about God doing an act of God. And so he says, Don't ever give yourself credit for it. It's going to be a temptation. So he says in our Deuteronomy 9, 5, it is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess the land. The Lord your God is driving them out before you in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In other words, God was blessing Israel not because they merited his blessing, but because he was fulfilling his covenant promises to the patriarchs. And these lessons are important for believers to remember, because it's easy for us to feel self-righteous at times about our relationship with God. Perhaps those who have practiced the scriptures, have practiced the faith, who have taken the study of God's Word and the knowledge of the things of God seriously, perhaps they can have a tendency to do so. We must be vigilant to guard against any such vain imagings of ourselves. God did not save us because of our righteousness, nor does our righteousness sustain our salvation. Instead, God sent his son Jesus precisely because of our unrighteousness. And that's what Moses was kind of reminding, it's which kind of a foreshadowing of Moses pointing to the Messiah, Moses pointing to the greater Moses, right? Moses was saying, It was me, the Redeemer figure, that kept you guys going. And so it is for us. It's our Redeemer. Just as Moses interceded for Israel, sparing them from the wrath of God in the wilderness, so too. To Messiah intercedes for us by means of his sacrificial death. Paul demonstrates that our salvation does not come from our own righteousness. We do not earn salvation through obedience. Instead, the word of God condemns sin, and all men have sinned and fallen short, and all stand equally condemned. So no one's righteousness, no one's knowledge is adequate. And therefore, salvation is based upon a covenantal promise, originally given all the way back to Abraham. Romans 4, verse 13. The promise to Abraham and to his descendants that he would be the heir of the world was not through the observance of the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Right. Rain from heaven. This is going to be a fun little exploration and Bible translations. And why it is a good idea if you don't know the original languages of Scripture, I would recommend two things. Find your one translation that you love, and that's your heart translation. That's the one you're going to memorize from. Like if you're going to memorize a verse, that's the one you're going to read from when you're wanting to study, or that's the one you're going to bring to church, or you're going to bring to Torah class. Like find your one heart translation. And with only a few exceptions, any of them in English will be fine. Okay. Any of them will be fine. They really will be. Find you that one that you just know is your translation. You just, it resonates with you. Right? And it can be for a variety of reasons. It can be because you like the wording, you like the level, the reading level of it, you like its choice of vocabulary, um, or maybe a deeper reason. You like its choices of which manuscripts it makes on, and and and deeper reasons. But find that one. That's the one you need to learn from, that's the one you need to stick with. But also, and this is easy now because it doesn't have to cost you any money because you got it on the computer. Get three or four other translations that you keep handy. So that when you're really doing the study, and after you've read it and you've kind of from your heart translation, you've picked up this is what the story's about, this is what the story means, you know, you've you've inwardly digested it. Then look at what other translations do with it. Because no translation is perfect, right? And each translation, those translators had to make decisions. The Hebrew language, as well as the Greek language, but especially the Hebrew language, is like each word is an onion because it's a word poor language. So it has multiple layers of meaning, and they're all true. It's not like one of them is the truest. They're all true. But when you're putting a Bible into English for people to read, you can't put, well, here are because then it won't read well, right? You can't put all of the options there. That's why having a few others to look at give you that. So we're gonna do this experiment now to see that. And then when you find that these translations, they won't contradict, by the way, but when you find out and see that, wow, they really did something different with that verse, it's not gonna be either or and you gotta figure out which one is the right one. Right? It's a synthesis. It's like, how are both of these going to be operating? What why is this one emphasizing this? Why they're gonna both be the case. That's Hebraic thought. You know, it's in your Hebraic toolbox. Hebrew is not, is it A or B? It's how is it C, which incorporates A and B, but creates a different than both of them separate. All right, so let's do this. Deuteronomy 11, verse 14. He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. Now, last week we talked about the Shema, and part of the Shema, in addition to Deuteronomy 6, 4, and following, is also Deuteronomy 11, verses 13 through 21. That's recited with it. And so it's set apart and prayed twice a day, every day. So Jesus would have prayed Deuteronomy 11, 13 through 21, twice a day. The context of the passage is one of adequate rainfall on the Peshat level. Moses tells the Israelites that the land of Canaan depends upon the annual rains. And unlike Egypt, which receives its water from the Nile, the land of Canaan, well, it's watered directly from heaven. Therefore, to survive in the land, Israel needed to be on good terms with heaven. Moses told them that if they make their proper connections, God has said, these are the ways you plug in, these are the actions that give the fruit. Then it, the Torah says, it the land will give the rain for your land, I will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and the late rain, that you may gather your grain and your new wine and your new oil. When the rains come at their proper time, the land prospers. And these promises, though, on a deeper level, have messianic implications. Here in Deuteronomy 11, Moses points out that the grain, the wine, and the oil are incumbent upon adequate rainfall. And so too the messianic age is incumbent upon the coming of Messiah. And so the coming of Messiah is comparable to the rainy seasons of the land of Israel. And you may have ever maybe even heard of a historic movement called the Latter-day Rain Movement. It's coming from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 11, 14 speaks of two distinct rainy seasons. In Hebrew, it's called the Yoreh and the Malkosh. The New American Standard, the NASB, translate these rains as the early rain and the latter rain, respectively. But it would be equally as accurate to refer to them as the autumn rains and the spring rains. The autumn rains generally begin in the land of Israel in the seventh month of the biblical calendar, and they continue on and off into the spring. The spring rains come near the end of the rainy season around Passover. The coming of Messiah can be compared to the two rainy seasons. In his first coming, Messiah did his primary work of redemption at Passover time, thereby fulfilling the symbolism of the spring festivals through his death and resurrection. And so his first coming can be compared to the spring rains, which fall around Passover. In his second coming, he will fulfill the symbolism for the fall festivals. And thus his return can be compared to the autumn rains, which begin to fall in the seventh month, the month of Tishra. And just as God is faithful to send the rain from heaven in its proper seasons, so too he sends Messiah at the appointed time. Between the spring rain and the autumn rain is long, hot, and a waterless summer. And those dry and seemingly intermittedly long months can be compared to the long season of Messiah's absence, between his first coming and his return. The prophet Hosea seems to suggest this correspondence between the Messiah's two advents and connects them to the two rainy seasons of the land of Israel. Hosea chapter 6, verse 3. His going forth, Messiah, is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain of the earth. And the psalmist praises the Davidic king, saying in Psalm 72, verse 6, May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. The prophet Joel follows with a similar sentiment, urging Israel to rejoice because God gives the autumn rain and the spring rain for righteousness. Joel 2, verse 23. So rejoice, O sons of Zion, and be glad in the Lord your God, for he has given you the early rain for your righteousness. Here we're going to have some fun. And he has poured down for you the rain, the early and latter rain as before. The Hebrew word Yorah, the autumn rains, has the verbal root Yarah, which means teaching, instruction. In fact, it is the same root where we get the word Torah. The double meaning of the word Yore gives rise to a delightfully ambiguous reading of Joel 2, verse 23, where the phrase, he has given you the early reign for righteousness, could also be read as he has given you the teacher of righteousness. It can mean both. And in fact, you will find translations that do this. Let's look here at Young's literal translation. And let's see. No, I don't want to give you that one yet. Hang on. Let me get that. This is Young's literal translation. By the way, yeah, I don't think if you find it, it isn't worth getting because it'll be really horrible print quality. But you can get it online. Always consult Young's literal translation. It's super old. I mean like 1800's old. So it's gonna have that like King James kind of vocabulary flow. So I understand that's difficult. But man, Young's literal translation, because he was so committed to being literal, it just reveals wonderful nuggets. So Joel 2, 23, and ye sons of Zion, joy and rejoice, and Adonai, the Lord your God, for he has given you the teacher for righteousness. So Young understood this ambiguity, and he included it in his translation. And similarly, Hosea 10, verse 12 contains the same ambiguity. Here I want you to consider these two different translations. First one's from the NASB, the New American Standard Version. It is time to seek the Lord until he comes to reign righteousness on you. This is from the JPS Tanakh, which, if you remember when I recommended the Jerusalem version, this is that Old Testament. Seek the Lord so that you may obtain a teacher of righteousness. Well, which one of these is correct? They seem to be, they're both correct. That's how Hebrew works. People who speak Hebrew know double meaning. We do double entendras in our speech too. We will very often say something and we give someone the look of like, yeah, you know what I'm really saying, right? It's the same thing. It isn't exclusive to Hebrew, but I'm telling you, the Hebrew prophets, when they wrote, they wrote poetically and they knew what they were doing. They purposely chose words to have this fullness, this pregnancy of the word. And so it's both. It means both of those. And again, that's where, like I say, have your heart translation. If it's the NASB, great. But you know, if you're kind of doing a study on Hosea, check out what Young says about it and definitely check out the JPS, right? Jesus the Messiah, he's the teacher of righteousness who comes to Israel as the former reign and the latter reign. What's fascinating is teacher of righteousness is a messianic title found throughout the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is an apt title for the Messiah. He is the teacher who descended like rain from heaven to teach us the ways of righteousness. The messianic correspondence between the two rainy seasons and the coming of Messiah, the teacher of righteousness, was not lost on the apostolic community. They must have understood the prophecies about the early rains and the latter rains from this messianic perspective. In his epistle, James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us to patiently wait for the coming of the Messiah, just as the farmer patiently awaits the early and the late rains. James chapter 5, verses 7 and 8. Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets the early and the late rains. You too be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. So just as rain descends from heaven, so too Messiah. And just as the rain comes at two different times, so too will our Messiah. And just as the rain brings life and prosperity to the land, so too will Messiah. Amen. All right, we will close there for this evening as we looked at Ev, trying to be true to the garden within tradition, right? Giving you different perspectives, different ways of understanding biblical interpretation, especially as was kind of native to the Jewish mind, the Hebraic mind, the Eastern mind, the first century mind, uh, so that you can kind of dive deeper into the text a little bit, and a little bit of practical challenges with your hundred blessings. Also, if you haven't done so, really seriously encourage you like find like the Bible you love. And not just a translation, like, you know, there's there's a Bible that sits on my desk. That's that's my I mean I love Bibles. I I have hundreds of Bibles. I have two come into me next week, right? I love them. All right, but I have one that's dirty, the covers smooth because of my hand on it. It's got my notes, it's got torn pages, it's probably an inch thicker than it should be because it's been wet and you know, all of that. It's my Bible. It's my heart Bible. You need that, include not just a translation, but one that just feels good in your hand. Maybe you love the smell of it, maybe you love the font size, maybe you need a Bible you just love to read. Find it. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money either. Just find one you love. But then get you some other good translations. Young's literal translation is a good one. Always have an NASB and NKJV around. Always consult in the Old Testament, the JPS, um an English translation of the Septuagint could help you in Old Testament studies, specifically more the Lexum translation. The others are a little wonky. Lexum is good. Um because the Greek Old Testament, you're getting how did the Greek mind of the third, you know, third century BC, the third century AD, how did it handle translating the Hebrew? So that's your first kind of Western grasp of the Hebrew text, so it can give you some insight. Um, so I'd recommend you do that. And another devotion is maybe get yourself a tracing Bible, right, when you write it out. All right, so hopefully some good things for you tonight, a little bit different, but just trying to expose you to different ways of doing Bible study. All right, let's close with a blessing. Baruchata Adonai Notein Hatara. Blessed are you, Lord God, who has given to us the gift that is the Torah. Amen. Go in peace. Shalom, shalom. Hi, everyone. Thank you for engaging this teaching. You know, we at Emmanuel have as one of our goals to make our teachings available online to anyone, everywhere, at any time, whether that's through a podcast or our YouTube channel or an MP3 download. It is our gift to you, and we want you to use it however you see fit. So if you feel motivated or desire to support future teachings, you can do so with the donate button at the bottom of our teaching page. That's found at immlutheran.org forward slash teaching. Again, thank you for participating in our teachings here and hope to see you or engage with you somehow, someway, somewhere.