Hebrew Roots

    Peace be unto you through our Father in heaven, and His Son, our Saviour, Yeshua HaMashiach.
    This issue of Hebrew Roots will be reaching you a little late. We had hoped to have it ready for bulk mailing in early December. When it became obvious that such a deadline was going to be impossible to meet, we decided to take more time in preparation and mail it after the holiday rush. Hopefully it will reach you in early January.
    We sincerely hope that all of you had a meaningful spiritual experience at the Chag HaSuccoth (the Feast of Tabernacles). For the second year in a row, we celebrated at Sis-Q-Meadows in southwestern Oregon. Again, it was a profoundly moving experience, but for different reasons than last year.
    This year, at Sis-Q, there were a sizable number of people from the local area who attended the Feast for the very first time. It is indeed wonderful, to see so many people, from so many different religious backgrounds, beginning to come together in fellowship at the festival of Succoth. This should not be a surprise to any of us who have been observing the festivals for many years. After all, Succoth is considered to be a festival for all nations and people. Little wonder that many are beginning to see the Feast as an appropriate time to express their devotion to El Shaddai (Ehl Shahd-die), the Almighty God, creator of the universe.
    1996 saw an expansion in the number of Non-Aligned Festival sites. Several festivals were held throughout the United States and Canada that were totally open and completely unaligned with any church denomination or organization. In our opinion, this is a healthy sign. While non-aligned sites present their own peculiar set of problems, the advantages of being free and open far outweigh the disadvantages. For too long the Spirit has been quenched at the festivals. Now the children of God no longer need to sit on their hands and be quiet. Interestingly enough, now that people are free to discuss openly their understandings (and sometimes misunderstandings) of scripture and doctrine, there is less animosity between people when disagreements occur. All of God’s people desire to learn and grow in grace and knowledge. However, we are not all at the same place in our spiritual growth. You may be way ahead of us in one area, and we may be out in front in another. By respectfully listening to each other and discussing our differences in a spirit of love (the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of love) and without anger, we are all able to learn and move closer to our goal of becoming more like our Saviour, Yeshua. And because our discussions are now more open, it is much easier to spot those who come to sow division, or wish to gather a following unto themselves. Indeed, we all have much for which we can bless God this year. But, as far as the Feast of Tabernacles goes, our greatest blessing this year is that He has set the captives free.
    Hebrew Roots is continuing to grow at a rate that astounds us. At this time, we do not advertise for subscribers to this publication. Except for the fact that the Servant’s News has mentioned us, and makes copies of the first issue available to those who request them, all of our new subscribers come to us as referrals from our current readership. When someone takes the time to send back a form full of names of people to whom they would like a free issue sent, we know that person must be finding Hebrew Roots to be of value.
    Because of the rapid growth, this will be the last issue of Hebrew Roots that we will be sending to our entire referral list. If you have received this publication as the result of someone sending us your name, and have not responded by sending in the form requesting to be put on the permanent mailing list, you will soon be receiving a letter asking if you wish to continue. Those who have sent in the form, or have requested tapes or back issues, or have contributed funds to support this publication, are automatically considered to be permanent subscribers.
    One problem we need to share with you concerns the computer software currently being used to maintain the name and address file. It is a commercial package and does not we many of the special features that are needed. Not only that, it also has a ‘special feature’ we could do very well without. It is one that causes records to be lost occasionally. It is our hope that we can soon find the time to write a custom software package that will not only end the record dropping syndrome, but will also provide some of the much needed features that will help make the mailings easier to handle.
    In this issue, the feature article, Torah of Truth, explores the foundational aspect of the first five books of the Bible. There are many Believers who hardly ever study these books, except as a collection of nice Bible stories for their children to learn in Sabbath or Sunday School Yet, from a Hebrew perspective, the Torah is the very foundation of all scripture, and if one does not have a thorough understanding of what the Torah actually teaches, one cannot truly understand many of the scriptures.
    When Yeshua was asked which commandment was the greatest, He responded by reciting the Shema. The article Hear, O Israel, examines this statement of faith and how it applies to Believers today.
    This year, some of the nonaligned Feast of Tabernacles sites began to explore Davidic Dance as a form of worship. (We know of at least three such sites) Is dance an acceptable form of worship? Is it possible that it is even commanded? Circle Dancing takes a look at a new phenomena in the Church of God. Food for Thought pursues the question, Do We Know Our God? The story of God’s chosen people continues in In the Beginning, with the marriage of God to Israel at Mt. Sinai.
    In Jerusalem; A Cup of Trembling, we take a brief look at the history of the Holyland and why Jerusalem is the focal point of so much trouble. Jerusalem is a city with a split personality, in more ways than one. Two major religions Judaism and Christianity) claim Jerusalem as their spiritual center on this earth, while another, Islam, claims Jerusalem as the third most important spiritual city to their religion. While there currently seems to be a spirit of reconciliation between many Christians and Jews, the nations of Islam see both as being tools of Satan.
    Most Americans do not realize chat the ultra fundamentalist Islamic people want to see Western civilization (and especially the United States) destroyed. They view the ‘Americanization’ of their societies as being a direct assault on the one true religion (Islam) by Satan the devil. It is not difficult to understand their position. Many Believers also see our society, especially the film and TV media, as bringing about the destruction of our nation’s moral fabric. However, we must remember that ultimately God is in charge. What we see taking place all around us, both in our own nations and in the world at large, is the final result of mankind tying to do it “his way.” “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” (Prov. 14:12) Now it is time to: “...Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD...” (Ex. 14:13)
    All of the current events taking place in Israel are but a prelude to making it possible for the Jewish people to either rebuild the Temple or erect a Tabernacle (tent) in order to reinitiate sacrificial services after a nineteen hundred year lapse. There will be another war in the Middle East, many will die and many others will suffer greatly, but the outcome will be that Israel, under a government that supports the religious community, will once again take control of the Temple Mount.
    The current tape offerings include Part IV of the Roots of Our Faith series. This time the topic is entitled: The Covenant Promise. It explores the original covenant that God cut with Abraham and how that covenant was passed down to his descendants of promise. The Wedding of the Messiah continues with Part II, God Marries Israel it is important to understand God’s first marriage to Israel in order to understand how the marriage of the Messiah to His bride must be different.
    Our sincere thanks to those of you who have helped support Hebrew Roots in the past several months. We have now been able to purchase a good quality tape copier. This, coupled with some better recording equipment should make our tapes of higher quality. It is our prayer that because you have blessed us, our Creator God in heaven will also bless you.

        May the peace of God
        be with you always,

        Dean & Susan Wheelock

Hebrew Roots is supported entirely by the prayers and freewill donations of it’s subscribers. It is published several times a year by Dean & Susan Wheelock. Subscriptions are free (based on availability of funds) to anyone who sincerely desires to "...grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ..."
(II Pet. 3:18)

Those wishing to assist financially in this teaching ministry can do so by sending a check or money order, payable in US funds, to:

Hebrew Roots
P0 Box 98
Lakewood, WI 54138
1-715-757-2775

The Torah of Truth
Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law (Torah) is truth.
Psalm 119:142

The Holy Bible is divided into two major divisions, commonly called the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many people refer to the two divisions as the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. This nomenclature, while not incorrect, is unfortunate as it has caused some people to take sides claiming that one or the other is superior in content, when in actual fact they represent two aspects of a single covenant. Even worse, some have said that the ‘New Testament’ does away with the ‘Old Testament’ and therefore one no longer needs to study the ‘Old Testament’ except as an historical document. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Which set of scriptures was Paul referring to in the above passages, the ‘New Testament’ or the ‘Old Testament?’ Since most of the ‘New Testament’ had not yet been written, much less canonized, (accepted as scripture by the apostles), and since Paul repeatedly quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures in his letters, it is obvious that Paul is referring to the ‘Old Testament in these verses.
Both the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Testaments are Holy Scripture. It might be better if the terms ‘old’ and ‘new were dropped, and in their place the terms ‘Hebrew Scriptures’ and ‘Greek Scriptures’ were substituted. It must be remembered that Yeshua and the first century apostles all used the ‘Hebrew Scriptures’ as their bible. A friend of ours likes to use the term “Yeshua’s Bible” when referring to the ‘Old Testament,’ because that is the ‘Bible’ that He used when He walked the earth.

The word ‘scripture’ (graphe in Greek) is used fifty-two times in the Greek Scriptures and always refers directly to the Hebrew Scriptures. Yeshua is quoted as using this word thirteen times. Another phrase that is often used in the Greek Scriptures to denote a passage from the Hebrew Scriptures is; “It is written,” followed directly by a quote from the Hebrew Scriptures. Sometimes the quote is directly from the Hebrew Scriptures, or it may be from the Septuagint version (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, commonly designated by the Roman numeral LXX) and other times the quote may be from a translation called the Targum. (The Targumim [plural form] were popular first century Scriptures translated into the Aramaic language.)
Another name for the Hebrew Scriptures is the one the Jewish people use. That name is Tanakh (Tah-nahkh’). It is a composite word that was created out of the three divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures; the Torah (law or instruction), the Nevi’im (Neh-vee eem’ = the Prophets), and the Kethuvim (Keh-too-veem’ = the Writings). The remainder of this article will refer to the Hebrew Scriptures as the Tanakh and the Greek Scriptures as the Brit Chadasha (Breet Ha-dah-shah) which is Hebrew for the New Covenant.

In our English Bibles the ‘Old Testament’ contains 39 books. However, in the Hebrew Tanakh those 39 books are grouped into 22 books, which is the exact number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Since there are a total of 27 books in the Brit Chadasha, this makes an actual total of 49 books to the entire Bible instead of the 66 books commonly found in our English versions. However, none of the scriptures we commonly associate with the ‘Old Testament are missing. In other words, the Hebrew Tanakh contains exactly the same books as the English ‘Old Testament,’ but in a different order.

If you were to purchase a Jewish version of the Scriptures, (such as the Tanakh - The Holy Scriptures; pub. by The Jewish Publication Society; Philadelphia - New York, 1988) this is the order which you would find.

It is interesting to note that this Hebrew grouping, when combined with the Brit Chadasha results in a total of 49 books (that is 7 times 7; seven being the number of spiritual perfection) which is the number of the Jubilee, when all Israelites are set free. The number 66 represents 6 times 11. Six is the number of man, while eleven is the number of disorder. Thus, man’s arrangement of the scriptures results in a ‘disorder.’

Which is the correct order? Yeshua Himself gives us the answer in the following scripture which has puzzled many people over the years:

Here Yeshua is referring to the very first and last murders of God’s prophets as recorded in the Tanakh. The first was recorded in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. This is when Cain murdered his brother Abel, the son of Adam and Eve. The last martyr mentioned was a prophet named Zechariah. His death is recorded in II Chron. 24:20-21 the last book in the Hebrew Tanakh. When one understands the original order of the Hebrew scriptures, it is evident that Yeshua, in addition to the context of the passage, was also making the statement that all of the Tanakh (from Genesis through Chronicles) is valid scripture, and that the correct order is the one found in the Hebrew manuscripts.

According to David H. Stern, translator of the Jewish New Testament (JNT), there are 484 passages from the Tanakh which are quoted a total of 695 times in the Brit Chadasha. Not all of these are direct quotes, many are statements in the speaker’s own words which directly refer to a Tanakh passage. For example, Psalm 110:1 is quoted or referred to in the Brit Chadasha a total of seventeen times, the most of all Tanakh passages. Sometimes it is a direct quote such as:

Other times, it is used in a statement that refers to Psalm 110:1 along with another passage, such as this one which includes Daniel 7:13 as well:

In the Oxford edition of the King James Version (KJV) there are 348 pages to the Brit Chadasha (New Testament). This means, there is an average of two Tanakh (Old Testament) quotes or references per page. Another way of putting it is, there is an average of over 25 quotes or references to the Tanakh in each book of the Brit Chadasha. Obviously, not just Yeshua, but all of the writers of the Greek Scriptures used the Tanakh as the basis for much of their teaching.
There are only nine books in the Tanakh that are not referenced in the Brit Chadasha. They are: Joshua, Ruth, Ezra, Esther, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Job, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs.

The word Torah is used in a number of ways. In general, it can be used as a designation for the entire Tanakh, from Genesis through Chronicles. More specifically, it refers to the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. An even more specific definition is gained from the usual translation of the word Torah into the English word ‘law.’ This is a poor translation because of the connotations that are carried by the word law. When one thinks of ‘law,’ what usually comes to mind are rules, policeman, citations, arrests, jail, judges, courts, parole, etc. But what should come to mind is:

The Hebrew word Torah comes from the root word yarah (yah-rah’) which means: “to flow as water; to lay or throw (espec. an arrow); fig. to point out; to teach.” Thus, as water flows down a river, so does God’s instruction flow down to us through the Torah. As the arrow hits it’s mark so we follow the instruction of God. When we miss the mark, we sin. Probably the best one word definition of Torah in English would be ‘instruction;’ the instruction from God to His highest form of creation, mankind. It tells us how to conduct our lives, both personally and in relationship with each other, so that we might live peaceful, joyful, productive and righteous lives in the flesh. The Torah, in and of itself, cannot give eternal life, (that requires faith) it was only intended to give us great blessings in this life.
An example of this principle is found in the story of the children of Israel and the twelve spies. From what we read, the ten spies who gave an evil report did not actually break any of the Torah instructions, nor did the people themselves when they moaned and groaned about wanting to return to Egypt. The problem was a total lack of faith. They did not really and truly believe that God would or could do what He said he would do for them.

It is through the Torah that God has revealed Himself to mankind. Here God tells us how He wants us to live, and in so doing reveals His very own nature to us. That nature is One that wants to abundantly bless His people Israel, and through them the entirety of the earth, with great peace, health, love, joy and prosperity. If Israel had obeyed the instruction of God, as revealed in the Torah, they wound have experienced tremendous peace and prosperity. They would have been an example to all the other nations of the world as to the proper way for people to live and for a nation to function.

In addition to being an instructive document on how we as individuals and as nations should live, the Torah is also a covenant document between God and the people that He chose to be separated from all the other people and nations of the world. While portions of the covenant are found in various places in the Torah, it is the book of Deuteronomy that functions as the final document giving the terms and conditions of the covenant between God and the children of Israel.

Previously, God had made a covenant with the children of Israel when He gave them the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai (also know as Mt. Horeb).

    The covenant mentioned in Deuteronomy does not replace the covenant made at Mt. Sinai. Instead, it should be viewed as an addendum to all of the previous covenants that God had made with Israel, beginning with those covenants cut with their fathers; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
    An excellent book dealing with the Torah, is entitled Torah Rediscovered; written by a Messianic Jewish couple, Ariel and D’vorah Berkowitz. It is available from First Fruits of Zion, P0 Box 280827, Lakewood, CO 80228-0827. Hebrew Roots highly recommends this book as an aid in developing a fuller understanding of the Torah and it’s role In the lives of all Believers.
    In their book, the Berkowitz’s state on pages 10-11:
    “...the Torah is not just a list of do’s and don’ts. It is, instead, a critically important document describing the legally binding relationship between Israel and God. Furthermore, it is a document which was given by God to serve as the national constitution for the nation of Israel. ... The do’s and don’ts are merely the stipulations by which Israel, the redeemed nation, can maintain its covenant relationship before its Great King and enjoy the benefits thereof.”

A third aspect of the Torah is that it is a marriage document between God, the husband, and Israel, the bride. In Hebrew terms, such a document is called a Ketuvah (Keh-too-vah’). It is a formal document that specifies all of the conditions of a marriage between a husband and wife. Especially important are the stipulations concerning what the wife is entitled to receive in case there is ever a divorce. It is important to remember that God did divorce the house of Israel, but He never divorced the house of Judah.

Why did God not divorce the house of Judah, even though she became worse than her sister Israel? Because it was through Judah that the Messiah was to come who would redeem (and remarry) all of Israel.

(For more information on the Old Covenant marriage please send for the current tape in the Wedding of the Messiah series.)

    A close look at this passage is needed, in order to accurately revel what Yeshua was saying.
    First of all let us examine the word ‘fulfill.’ It is translated from the Greek word pleroo (Strong’s #4137) and means: “to make full, to fill, to fill up, to fill to the full.”
    What is being “filled to the full?” Not just the Law (Torah) but also the Prophets. Yeshua’s life did “make full” (fulfilled) the prophecies about His first coming as recorded in the Tanakh. But does the fulfillment of prophecy do away with those prophecies? No, the prophecies still stand, but now they stand as being accomplished or fulfilled. The same is true of the Law (Torah). It has finally been perfectly accomplished, something that no man has been able to do before or since. It has been said that the first century followers of Yeshua referred to Him as “The Living Torah.” In other words, Yeshua was recognized as being the one who embodied all that the Torah contained, by His life, by His death, by His resurrection, and by His example.
    Yeshua does not negate the Torah, rather He confirms the continued existence of the Law (Torah) in the verses which immediately follow.

Here the English word ‘fulfilled’ is a completely different Greek word; ginomai (ghin’-om-ahee, Strong’s #1096). It is defined in Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon as: “1. to become, i.e. to come into existence, begin to be, receive being; 2. to become, i.q. to come to pass, to happen, of events; 3. to arise, appear in history, come upon the stage; 4. to be made, done, finished, to be done, executed.”

The word ‘jot’ refers to the Hebrew letter yod (yohd). It is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. The ‘tittle’ does not even refer to an actual letter. It is the decorations chat are placed on the letters. If the ‘tittles’ were removed, it would in no way change the meaning of the letters or the words. To give an example, here is the letter ‘I’ in the type style used for Hebrew Roots. Here is the letter ‘I’ in a different type style. The first one has decorative lines on the top and bottom of the letter. The second one does not. The decorations do not change the meaning of the letter, or of the word ‘I.’ Yeshua said that even those decorations would not disappear until all “comes to pass, or is “finished.” Since heaven and earth are still in existence today, we can all rest assured that not one ‘jot or tittle’ has, as yet, passed from the Torah.
Continuing on:

Which ‘commandments’ is Yeshua referring to here? The same commandments that are referred to in the following passage:

This verse is followed by a listing of several of the Ten Commandments plus the general command; “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (v.19)
Yeshua ends His Sermon on the Mount with the following statement about lawlessness:

Or, as the King James Version puts it: “... sin is the transgression of the law.”
The teaching of our Messiah, Yeshua is very dear. The Torah still stands as the standard by which peopIe are to live their lives and by which they shall be judged.