written by Deborah Oakley

Introduction

I do not in any way claim to be an expert on biblical Hebrew or Jewish thought.  I’ve done some informal studies, but I’m a greenhorn, not a guru.  Still, there’s no reason I can’t share the things I’ve learned up to this point.  My sources are various things: reading, talking to people, attending Messianic Jewish Shabbat (Sabbath) services, biblical Hebrew classes, a short stint studying with an online Messianic Jewish yeshiva (school), Ray Vander Laan, …  The list goes on.

I’ll be using Hebrew words here and there.  I’ve been hanging out with Jews for some time now, and I’ve learned it’s helpful to know those terms.  Here are some Hebrew words for this post:

Hebrew	English	Comments
shabbat	sabbath
yeshiva	school, place of study
Yeshua	Jesus
Mashiach	Messiah	pronounce the ch in the back of your throat, as you do in Bach
Tanakh	Old Testament
B’rit Chadashah	New Testament (although it’s literally translated New Covenant)	pronounce the ch in the back of your throat, as you do in Bach

As I write this series, I’ll be using the terms Jew and Greek.  I know Apostle Paul said “there is no Jew or Greek …”  I’m not talking about status or anything like that.

There are some major differences between today’s Christians and Jews in thought, culture, and worship practices; ancient Hebrew and Greek thought were also quite different.  (We think Greek in the western Christian church.  I’ll explain more about that in a later post.)  I utilize these terms to differentiate between the two camps.

This series isn’t about evangelizing non-believers, it’s about discipleship of current believers.  So, for the most part, Jewish will signify Messianic Jewish believers (Jews who believe Yeshua is Mashiach).  Greek will signify believers within the western Church.

Why Study Hebrew?

Our mode of thinking has shifted dramatically from that of Yeshua’s world.  As a result, we now read and perceive the Bible through Greek eyes, rather than through the eyes of the Jews who wrote it.  Yes, we have the New Testament in Greek; however, it was mostly written by Hebrews.  The thinking behind the New Testament is Hebrew.

When Christianity began, it wasn’t a separate thing from Judaism.  It began with Jews who worshipped at the Temple, studied in synagogues, and did all the things Jews did.  Eventually, they dispersed to the world.  Some wanted to take the knowledge of Yeshua to the rest of the world.  Some wanted to escape the persecution they were experiencing from Jews who didn’t believe Yeshua was Mashiach.  (Let’s not assign blame here.  Christians aren’t squeaky clean, either.  We’re just looking at the facts of how modern Christianity came to be so different from Judaism.)  From a supernatural point of view, I believe God intended this dispersal so His Word would be carried to the ends of the earth.  I also believe it’s time to bring the Body of Christ back together.  Look around you.  Consider how interest in Jewish roots has been sparked in the last few years.  The Holy Spirit is moving.  Let’s get on board.

I do believe God has protected His Word and us.  We understand the basics of the Gospel, and our salvation is very real.  I don’t believe that’s at risk. I do believe we’ve lost a huge amount in deep understanding of and intimacy with Scripture.

Yeshua’s Prayer

John 17 records a prayer Yeshua prayed just before He was to be crucified.  These were His last moments here in the flesh with His people.  What He had to say in this prayer must have been pretty important to Him.  That should make it important to us.

So, let’s look at a bit of what He said:

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.  (John 17:3)

Know.  We Greeks perceived that word differently than did the Hebrews who wrote it.  To us, knowledge is a cerebral thing.  If we have the facts/data stored in our heads, and we can retrieve it and deliver it to someone else, we say we know a thing.  To the ancient Hebrews, knowledge was all about experience; what you could taste, touch, see, smell, hear.  (I’ll talk a bit about these differences in thinking in a later post.)  So, when Yeshua was talking about knowing the Father, He wasn’t simply talking about head knowledge.  He was talking about a knowing that was much more intimate and experiential, and He said that experience sums up what eternal life is.

Later in His prayer, He asked the Father to make all believers One.  He said that would be a critical part of our testimony to the world.

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.  (John 17:20-23)

Consider Christians and Messianic Jews today.  We don’t fight with each other; however, we are NOT One.  As of right now, we’re two separate camps.  Friendly camps, but separate.  When we do get together, we spend too much time trying to convince each other why one of us is right and the other is not.  We try to convert each other.  That’s just ridiculous – believers trying to convert other believers!  What we SHOULD be doing is getting together, talking, and figuring out why we’re separate, and how to bridge the gap between us.  We don’t have to be the same.  Yeshua didn’t ask for that.  But we DO have to be One.

How do we do that?  We start with ourselves.  We humble ourselves, admit we hold a portion of the guilt for the barrier between us, and start trying to learn to see the world through Jewish eyes so we can have real, meaningful conversations with our brothers.

And why do you look on the splinter that is in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye? Or how will you say to your brother, Let me pull the splinter out of your eye; and, behold, a beam is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First cast the beam out of your own eye, and then you shall see clearly to cast the splinter out of your brother’s eye.  (Matthew 7:3-5)

If you don’t understand the Jewish way of thinking, you will never be able to truly hear what a Jew is saying as you discuss these deep things of the heart, and you won’t understand what to do to break down those barriers.

No, I’m not saying I think we all need to convert to Judaism.  If God wanted us to be Jewish, He’d have given us to Jewish parents.  He had His reasons for raising us up as Greeks and making us His own, and His reasons are good.  I AM saying we need to broaden our perspective.

Context Governs Perspective

Context is the surroundings, circumstances, environment, background, or settings that determine, specify, or clarify the meaning of an event or other occurrence.

Perspective is a view, vista, or outlook.

You interpret the things you see, hear, read, etc. through the lens of your perspective.  The breadth of your perspective is governed by the context in which you’ve lived life.  The more things you see/learn/experience, the wider the context you have to assign things their meanings, and the broader your perspective.  The more you can know in the Hebrew sense.

Here’s an example to illustrate my point.  Don’t just read the data in these stories. Try to put yourself into them.  Experience them.  Know them.

Scenario 1

Your friend comes to visit you over the New Year holiday, and he brings you a gift.  It’s a very elaborately-wrapped package, and you can see he’s excited for you to open it.  Inside you find a gift box of Spam.

 

 

Scenario 2

We’re going to go back a few years before this visit occurred.  Forget about the gift of Spam for a moment.  It hasn’t happened yet.

You get a job teaching English in South Korea.  You arrive shortly before Chuseok (pronounced choo-sawk), which you learn is their fall harvest festival.  It’s a big holiday in South Korea and has many things in common with Thanksgiving in America.

When you venture out into the stores, you’re bemused to find very fancy gift boxes of Spam in the stores.  They aren’t cheap, either.  The cost ranges from $50 – $300 per box.  You ask some new Korean friends about them, and they tell you Spam is considered a delicacy in Korea.  People give each other gifts during Chuseok, and this is one of the popular gifts.

The New Year comes around, and you experience Seollal (Chinese New Year).  This is the other really big holiday in Korea; it has the same cultural and emotional importance as does Christmas in the West.  People give gifts this holiday as well, to impart good fortune to others for the coming year.  Again, fancy Spam boxes are prominent in stores.

As time goes by and you learn more about the people you live and work with, you get a better feel for why this is so.  The Korean War is the Big Event in their history.  They know about World War II, but it’s more a blip in history for them.  Japan occupied Korea from 1910 – 1945 and, during that time, the Korean people suffered greatly.  The end of World War II was the catalyst that ousted the Japanese, but the Communists immediately stepped in and tried to take over and the country was thrown into civil war.  Already brutalized and destitute from the Japanese Occupation, their civil war stripped them of what little they had left.  They spent many decades in extreme poverty and deprivation.

America fought for South Korea in their civil war.  Spam was often a part of soldiers’ rations, and those soldiers frequently shared their rations with the locals.  To one who had lived a life of starvation, that can of meat was fine dining indeed.

Other little things give you a sense of how deeply those years of starvation affected the Koreans.  For instance, every morning when you arrive at school, your co-teacher greets you with, “Good morning.  Did you eat breakfast?”  You wonder why she’s so curious about your morning routine, so you finally ask.

“During the Occupation and the War, everyone was starving.  When you met someone, if you had food, you asked if they had eaten.  There was a good chance they hadn’t.  Hospitality requires you to take care of visitors and feed them if you can.  Now it’s just part of how we greet each other – similar to when Americans say, ‘How are you?’ ”

Share food when you’re starving as well?  That’s when you begin to understand just how deeply the eastern Law of Hospitality runs.  You see, and experience, it everywhere you go.  Someone is ALWAYS trying to feed you!

After you’ve been in South Korea for a while, you get the opportunity to attend a retreat one of the Korean churches has organized.  This church is very involved in working with North Korean refugees.  The people at the retreat are a mix of South Koreans, North Korean refugees, Korean-Americans from a sister-church in the States, and a small smattering of westerners.

At the retreat you meet Mr. Hwang, an elderly gentleman who was a young child during the war.  After the cease-fire was signed, he and his mother ended up in North Korea.  He tells you about how hard life in North Korea was.  The South Koreans had rebuilt their land and prospered greatly, but starvation and poverty were still the rule of the day in North Korean life.  He tells you heartbreaking stories of the desperate lengths people in North Korea went to in order to survive.  This was the only existence he had known, until he finally managed to escape the North and make it to South Korea.

North Korea is a closed society.  The government goes to great lengths to ensure the population has no contact with the outside world.  Mr. Hwang tells you some of the propaganda the North Korean government uses to control its population.  They’ve made Americans into the Boogeyman.  They tell their people Americans have control of South Korea, and habitually roam the streets, raping and pillaging and doing whatever evil they please to the South Koreans.  They say the rest of the world is in terrible straits, and North Korea is a prosperous paradise.

Toward the end of the retreat, Mr. Hwang tells you you’re the first American he’s ever met and, if someone had told him 20 years prior he’d be friends with an American, he’d have thought they were crazy.  Then he says something very shocking.  He quotes a passage in Isaiah:

The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.  (Isaiah 11:8)

He tells you, “To me, that prophecy came true today when I met you.”  You’re rocked as you realize he means you are the viper and he is the infant, and stunned as you begin to grasp how deeply and thoroughly Americans are villainized in North Korean culture.

Mr. Hwang and you become friends, and you keep in contact after the retreat is over.  As time goes by, you learn more of his story.  One day he shares his shame and his hope with you.

“When I was very small, during the war, my family was SO hungry.  We hadn’t eaten in days.  We met some strange-looking men, and they gave us some canned meat.  I was too young to understand who they were.  They were simply angels to me.  As the years went by, I often thought of how wonderful it would be to be so wealthy and generous I could just give food away to strangers and not be concerned about it, as those men did for me.  During those years, I also learned to hate Americans.  That was what I was taught.  It wasn’t until I came to South Korea that I learned the Americans I hated were the same angels who gave my family food.  I have asked God for many years for the chance to make things right.  He answered my prayer when He introduced me to you.”

Even though his earlier hatred of Americans seems like a small thing by your standards, especially given the circumstances, you’ve been in Korea long enough to understand how deeply he feels he violated hospitality, so critical in eastern culture.  You also understand that, in telling you about his shame, he has “lost face” (an Asian concept that has to do with being embarrassed and losing a measure of dignity and honor in another’s eyes).  It’s a REALLY big deal to him.  You feel privileged to be able to be one God uses to restore this part of him.

Time goes by, you go back home to America, and Mr. Hwang promises to save enough money to come visit you.

Some time later, Mr. Hwang arrives in America to visit you over the New Year holiday, and he brings you a gift.  It’s a very elaborately-wrapped package, and you can see he’s excited for you to open it.  Inside you find a gift box of Spam.  From your experience, you can see it’s not one of the cheaper boxes, either.  He bought you the fanciest, most expensive box he could find.

What do you think of your gift?

What Changed?

You see the Spam in a totally different light now, don’t you?  Why?  It’s still the same box of Spam.

In the first scenario, you only had your own context to interpret the gift.  Generally speaking, Spam doesn’t hold any significance in our culture.  It’s a common item.  So, your perspective was limited to whether you do or don’t like Spam.  There’s nothing wrong with that perspective.  It’s useful.  You need that perspective when you go grocery shopping.  But, imagine your conversation with Mr. Hwang if you only had Scenario 1’s context to interpret the gift.  Your reaction would be rather lukewarm toward it.  Mr. Hwang would be confused and hurt.  This thing that meant so much to him was nothing to you.  The words the two of you would say would be along the lines of “Do you like it” and “Thanks, it’s nice.”  You’d be speaking to each other, but you wouldn’t be communicating at all.  He’d be hurt, you’d be bewildered, it’d all be a big mess, and neither of you would understand why things turned out the way they did.

But, with the context of Scenario 2 to inform your perspective, you have another dimension to add to your understanding.  Now, even if you don’t particularly like Spam, you can appreciate it.  You haven’t replaced your view, you’ve broadened it.  More importantly, you can feel all the things Mr. Hwang didn’t say when he gave you that gift.

Biblical Interpretation

We Greeks are reading God’s gift of His Word through limited, Scenario 1 eyes.  We’re missing things.  It’s hindering our intimacy with Him, and it’s hindering our unity with our Jewish brothers and sisters.  Sure, they have a part in that unity, but let’s not worry right now about what we think they should be doing.  Let’s start with ourselves.

Conclusion

I don’t know it all.  I don’t even know a lot.  But I’ll share what I do know.  This series will address the following:

• Hebrew Alef Bet: We call it alphabet.  They say alef bet (the names of the first and second letters in the Hebrew alphabet).  It really isn’t difficult to learn to read Hebrew.  You learn the sounds of the letters.  You sound out the words.  There you have it.  You’re reading Hebrew.  I can give you the basics so you can read the Tanakh in Hebrew.
• Differences Between Greek and Hebrew Thought: I don’t understand all of this completely, but I’ll share what I know.  The implications behind some of this, and the resulting thought in our translating, are fascinating.
• Jewish History: I know a little about Jewish history thanks to my yeshiva classes.  Knowing where the Jews came from helps us to understand where they are now.  You can’t be a true brother to someone if you don’t know and respect his heart.

I hope you’ll join me.  I hope you’ll use the site forum to share the things you’ve learned.  “Come, let us reason together.”