Leviticus 1:1–5:26 Parashat Vayikra (A Gospel-Oreinted Torah Study)

This is a gospel-oriented Torah study. Our goal is to connect the good news of Yeshua the Messiah (the gospel message) to its Hebraic, pro-Torah roots or foundations. The information given here is more than head knowledge. Understanding and wisdom (the right application of knowledge that is based on truth) is taught thus making biblical truth practical, relevant and applicable to your daily life. The truths of the Bible not only have the power to transform your life here and now for the better, but eventually to take you past the veil of death and into eternity.

This Torah study is subdivided in sections by topic in a magazine format thus making it easy to watch at several sittings.

May you be blessed as you watch this video.

For a free, printable adult and youth Torah study guide on this Torah portion (parashah), please go to http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/parshiot…

 

Exodus 38:21–40:38 Parashat Pekudei (A Gospel-Oriented Torah Study)

This is a gospel-oriented Torah study. Our goal is to connect the good news of Yeshua the Messiah (the gospel message) to its Hebraic, pro-Torah roots or foundations. The information given here is more than head knowledge. Understanding and wisdom (the right application of knowledge that is based on truth) is taught thus making biblical truth practical, relevant and applicable to your daily life. The truths of the Bible not only have the power to transform your life here and now for the better, but eventually to take you past the veil of death and into eternity.

This Torah study is subdivided in sections by topic in a magazine format thus making it easy to watch at several sittings. May you be blessed as you watch this video.

For a free, printable adult and youth Torah study guide on this Torah portion (parashah), please go to http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/parshiot…

 

Happy Biblical New Year…in One More Month!

After careful consideration, reviewing all of the reputable reports from the land of Israel, and in discussion with the beit din of the elders of our online congregation, we at Hoshana Rabbah have concluded that the barely in the land of Israel is not yet abib/aviv and that we have, approximately one more month until the new biblical year begins. So put your dust pans and whisk brooms away. You have another month of spring cleaning and deleavening your homes!

Although several messianic ministries have declared the barley in the land of Israel to be abib, the evidence they have produced is either based on non-biblical criteria, or they have failed to produce actual photos of barley grains in the abib state as the Bible requires and as practiced by ancient Judaism. Thus we reject their findings.

One reputable and scholarly Jewish man in the land of Israel did ostensibly find abib barley in the hot Jordon River Valley, but this barley was located a a short distance from a paved highway. The highway’s pavement reflects heat to the adjacent barley and due to the greenhouse effect, this barley appears to have ripened ahead of all of its nearby neighbors as well as all the other barley throughout the land of Israel (see photos below). Obviously paved highways did not exist in biblical times. Based on this evidence, we cannot conclude that the barley is abib in the land of Israel, and thus we have one more month to go until the biblical new year begins.

Below are links the two reputable sources that this ministry relies on for conducting Bible-based abib barley searches.

The first one is Hebrew In Israel by Yoel Halevi at https://www.facebook.com/HaleviTeacher. Yoel and his team determined the barley not to be abib.

In the picture of the barley along the highway on Yoel’s FaceBook page, you will notice that the barley adjacent to the road appears to be abib, while as you move away from the highway, it appears to be more green (not abib).

The second one is Devorah Gordon at https://www.facebook.com/datetree.

Devorah and her team examined eight barley fields throughout the land of Israel and documented the state of the barley as you can see. She also determined that the barely was not abib.

And there you have it.

So happy biblical new year in about a month!

 

The Truth About the Vernal Equinox Calendar

What Calendar Did Yeshua Follow?

So which calendar is the true calendar of the Bible? As of this writing, there are three calendars vying for this distinction. They are:

  • The rabbinc Jewish or Hillel 2 calendar, which originated in ca. A.D.
  •   359–360 as the last act of the last Jewish Sanhedrin and was approved and sanctioned by Roman emperor Constantine. (For more information on the history of this calendar, go to https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/new_moons.pdf.)
  • The aviv barley/new moon calendar (for more information on this calendar, read my online teaching at https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/caldemyst.pdf and https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/vis_moon.pdf).
  • The vernal equinox calendar.
  • There are several other fringe calendars (e.g., the Noah calendar, the Enoch calendar, the Zadok Qumran calendar as well as several other Essene calendars) that have caught the attention of some Bible students that are totally unsupported biblically; therefore, we won’t even take the time even to address them.

In previous articles, we have discussed the Hillel 2 calendar above, which most of Rabbinic Judaism currently follows and was sanctioned in A.D. 360 by Roman Emperor Constantine. However, this was not the calendar that the biblical Jews used in the time of Yeshua. We know that Yeshua used the same calendar as that of mainstream Judaism of his day. This is evident from the Gospel, the Book of Acts record and from the writings of Paul, since Yeshua and his disciples observed biblical feast days (e.g., Passover, Atonement, Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles) on the same day as the Jews.

The next calendar, the abib/aviv barley, visible new moon calendar, which is the one that this ministry follows for the reasons given in the article links provided above. We also believe and have proven from the Bible and ancient records that this is the calendar of mainstream biblical Judaism as well as of Yeshua and the first century saints.

The last calendar is the vernal equinox calendar, which looks to the vernal or spring equinox to determine the beginning of the new biblical year and, hence, the dates for the biblical feasts, while ignoring the abib/aviv barley growing in the land of Israel. This is what we want to discuss below. Many modern believers, in frustration over calendar controversies and in light of the confusing nature of the subject itself, have thrown up their hands in frustration and have chosen simply either to follow the traditional rabbinic or Hillel 2 calendars, or to base the biblical calendar on the spring equinox. For example, the Christians church uses the spring equinox to determine the date of Easter. But is this how the Bible and the first century Jews determined the biblical new year and festival dates? This is the question we’ll answer below.

Overview of the Biblical Jewish Calendar

The calendar that the rabbinc Jews use today is a modified version of the one used at the time of Yeshua and the apostles in the first century and originates from ca. A.D. 360. It was the opus maximum or life work of a Jewish sage named Hillel 2 (A.D. 330–365, Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, by R. J. Zwi et al, p. 78, Holt et al; 1966). Up until that time, the entire Jewish diaspora (Jews living outside the Holy Land) depended upon the Judean Sanhedrin (the ruling Jewish body of elders in Jerusalem) to determine the calendar and legal observance of the annual biblical Sabbaths. Yet because of the persecution in the Roman world against the Jews, the messengers from Judea were often menaced or threatened as they attempted to convey calendric rulings from Judea to Jewry in the diaspora. This presented a perplexing problem for synagogues in distant lands such as Babylon or Egypt that depended upon news from Judea to determine their calendar, and hence feast day observances. “But as the religious persecution continued, Hillel determined to provide an authorized calendar for all time to come, though by doing so he severed the ties which united the Jews of the Diaspora to their mother country and to the patriarchate” (Dictionary of Ancient Rabbis, by Jacob Neusner, p. 200, Hendrickson; 2003). This is a brief explanation of the origins of the modern rabbinc Jewish calendar.

By contrast, and in contradistinction to the rabbinc calendar, the Torah-Word of Elohim states that the new year should start on the month when the barley was green in its head (i.e., abib/aviv) and at the sighting of the crescent new moon (Exod 9:31; 12:1–2; 13:4, for more information on this calendar, read my online teaching at https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/cal_demyst.pdf and https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/vis_moon.pdf). This determines the entire calendar for the upcoming year including when to observe YHVH’s commanded annual feasts (Lev 23). In an effort to be faithful to YHVH’s Word, the Jewish sages of the Second Temple era established elaborate rituals and protocols to determine when the new moon had occurred. (This information is available from ancient Jewish sources, and I reference them in my articles on the subject at https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast.)

The Vernal Equinox in Determining Passover

Up until the second century A.D., the rabbinic Jews in fact followed the abib barley calendar as I document in my other (earlier referenced) calendar articles. True, the Jews supplemented the observance of the barley with astronomical observances as well (e.g., the equinox, which they learned from the Babylonian astrologers) along with other natural spring phenomenon. Nevertheless, their ancient writings reveal that a recognition that the barley has preeminence for determining the year. A Jewish Torah scholar or sage (a second century Tanaitic source) says in the Babylonian Talmud,

Our [sages] taught, based on three things is the year intercalated: on the abib, on the fruits of the trees, and on the equinox. Based on two of them the year is intercalated but based on one of them alone the year is not intercalated. And when the abib is one of them everyone is pleased. (Bavli Sanhedrin 11b; from http://www.Karaite-Korner.org/abib_faq.shtml#rabbanites_and_abib)

Another Jewish sage declares,

Our [sages] taught [that] the year is intercalated based on [the abib in] three regions: Judea, Transjordan, and Galilee. Based on two of them the year is intercalated but based on one of them alone the year is not intercalated. And when Judea is one of them everyone is pleased because the omer [wave-sheaf] offering can only come from Judea. (Bavli Sanhedrin 11b; ibid.)

These quotes from the Babylonian Talmud reveal that the Jews in Babylon (outside the land of Israel) used other factors (i.e., the fruit trees and the vernal or spring equinox in addition to the abib barley) to determine the biblical calendar. This is because Babylon was hundreds of miles north and east of Israel, and lacking modern communications abilities and means of rapid travel, it wasn’t easy for the Jews outside the land of Israel to look to the barley and new moon in Israel to calculate the biblical calendar. These are no longer impediments in our modern times of instant communications, so gaining this information is no longer an issue.

The Biblical Calendar and the Vernal (Spring) Equinox

Because of a misunderstanding of how and to what degree, if any, the vernal equinox factored into determining the biblical calendar, some folks are recommending that the vernal equinox be the main factor in establishing the new biblical year.

Continue reading
 

How Do We Know When to Declare the Month to Be Aviv or Not?

Quite often at the beginning of the biblical new year there is confusion as to whether the barley in the land of Israel is aviv (or abib) or not. After searching the land of Israel for aviv barley in the early spring, some search groups declare the barley to be aviv and some do not, even though both groups look at the same barley. Why the confusion, and who is right? Eventually each person has to make up their own mind, but below we will explain the criteria for determining whether the barley is aviv or not.

At this point, some of who are reading this may be saying, “Huh?” when it comes to the term aviv barley. What is aviv barley and what does that have to do with anything that pertains to me? To answer this question, let’s quickly review some basic truths regarding the biblical calendar. This is important to know if we want to celebrate YHVH’s biblical feasts at the right time and according to his Torah-instructions.

The first fundamental truth to understand in determining when to observe the biblical holidays is that months on the biblical calendar begin when the new moon is sighted. (I’ve already discussed this issue elsewhere. For that info, go to http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast.) To know the dates of the biblical feasts, one must determine when the months begin, and this is dependent on knowing when the biblical new year begins—that is, figuring out when is the first day of the first month of the biblical new year.

On our modern Roman calendar, determining new year’s day each year easy to do. But this is not the case with the biblical calendar. Why is this? The Roman calendar is based on the solar cycle, which is 3651/4 days long. By contrast, the biblical calendar is a luni-solar calendar. This means it’s based on both the solar cycle and the lunar cycle. The latter is only 354 days long, or roughly 11 days shorter than the solar cycle. The biblical feast go off the lunar cycle, not the solar cycle and is based on knowing when each month begins. This means that if you base your year only on the lunar cycle, then each lunar year will fall behind the solar cycle 11 days each year. In three years, that will be 33 days or a little more than a month. That being the case, eventually, the biblical feasts will fall further and further behind the solar calendar and the seasons. Were this to occur, then in three years we would be celebrating Passover a month earlier, or in the winter and not in the spring. In a number of years, Passover would occur in December, then in the autumn, and then in the summer, and in a few decades, we would be back in the spring again. This cannot be so, since the Torah declares that the feasts must fall “in their seasons” (KJV) or “at their appointed times” (NKJV) (Lev 23:4). Thus they cannot fall outside their appointed seasons. There are deep spiritual or theologically reasons for this, but we will save that for another discussion.

Because the lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the solar calendar, roughly at the end of every third year going into fourth year on average the lunar calendar needs to make an adjustment to stay in sync with the solar calendar. This means that one must add a thirteenth month (in Hebrew called Adar Bet) to the calendar in order to keep up with or to stay aligned with the solar year. This is called a leap year, or, technically, an intercalary year. It is the same idea of adding an extra day onto the month of February every four years on our modern calendar.

Now how do we know when to add a thirteenth month? Well, the Bible doesn’t just spell it out in Greek-thinking logic like a mathematical equation. As with most biblical subjects that reflect Hebrew block or step logic, we have to search the Scriptures for the answers and then put the pieces of the puzzle together. The same is true when figuring out issues pertaining to the biblical calendar including when the new year begins and when to add a thirteenth month.

We won’t go into much detail here, since this is a brief overview of the subject. (Again, for the details, see the link to my articles on the biblical calendar at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html#feast.) Suffice it to say, the ancient (now wild-growing) barley in the land of Israel is the factor that determines whether to add a thirteenth month or not. In fact, the first month of the biblical calendar is called the “month of the aviv” (or abib, see Exod 13:4; 23:15), which is a technical agricultural term relating to the state of maturation the barley grain in the early spring season of the new year.

Barley is the first grain crop ripen in the land of Israel in the early spring, and typically comes ripe roughly 50 days before the wheat harvest in the late spring during the time of the biblical Feast of Weeks or Pentecost.

For the first month of the biblical calendar to be called “the month of the aviv,” the barley must be in the aviv state of maturation. This means that the barley grain is “green in the ear” and is at the least parchable, that is, it can be roasted over a fire to make it grindable. Why is this important? It is to be able to fulfill the biblical command to offer up to YHVH an omer of grain (roughly an amount equivalent two-litters) on First Fruits Day during the Feast of Unleavened Bread season. The spiritual and prophetic importance of this day is yet another discussion which I cover elsewhere (https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/unlbread.pdf and https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/firstfruits.pdf). Suffice it to say, it prophetically points to Yeshua the Messiah’s ascension to heaven after his resurrection.

So in the biblical calendar, if we come to the end of the twelfth month, it is necessary to go searching through the land of Israel for aviv barley. If you find it in sufficient quantities (at least 32 omers), then this marks the beginning of the first month of the new year. If you don’t find it in sufficient quantities, then you add a thirteenth month onto the end of the current year (again referred to as Adar Bet). Again, roughly at the end of every third year, a thirteenth month must be added to the biblical calendar to keep the lunar calendar (which the biblical feasts are based on) in sync with the solar calendar (which the biblical year is based on).

If one finds aviv barley, how much aviv barley is enough? There must be enough to make a sheaf or an omer’s worth of grain, which is a biblical measuring unit equal to about two liters. Why this amount? This is because the Torah commanded the priests to offer up an omer of barley grain on the First Fruits Day (called the omer or first fruits offering) in conjunction with the time of Feast of Unleavened Bread that falls during the second half of the first month of biblical calendar (Lev 23:9–14). So finding a few stalks of aviv barley in a field is not sufficient. There must be enough to make two liters worth of flour.

Now at this point in the discussion some well-meaning, Torah-pursuant people will disagree about the need to find a full omer-amount of barley on the first day of the new month. Say, for example, you find only a few stalks of aviv barley, but not enough to make an omer, won’t there be enough barley that will have ripened within two to three weeks to make an omer for the first fruits offering on First Fruits Day? Maybe, but we cannot predict this for certain. It is mere speculation to say that the barley will have ripened from the first day of the month until roughly two or more weeks later when First Fruits Day occur. Why is this? Those who say yes are speculating that weather conditions will be such that there will be enough aviv barley to make an omer offering in time for First Fruits Day. But what if the weather suddenly turns cold, or cloudy and the barley doesn’t ripen in time after you have declared the new year? What then? What if you have declared the new year based on finding only a few stalks of aviv barley, but not enough to make an omer and all Israel is now preparing to keep the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread? In biblical times, during this time each family would have been separating out their Passover lamb on the tenth day of the first month in preparation for slaughtering it on the fourteenth day on Passover as the Torah commands. Moreover, the Israelites would have been making plans to travel to Jerusalem or wherever YHVH had chosen to place his name in Israel in order to keep the Passover and Unleavened Bread as the Torah mandates. What happened if, after all of this, it is suddenly discovered that there was not sufficient barley for an omer offering because the weather conditions in the land of Israel weren’t conducive for the barley to ripen? You would have just thrown the whole nation of Israel into chaos. Thousands of lambs that were separated for the Passover sacrifice now have to be put back into the flock and travel plans have to be postponed for a month. All the temple preparations have to be put on hold, and all the plans that the priests and Levites have made as they were preparing to officiate at the spring feasts now have suspended for another month. The thousands of lambs that were brought to Jerusalem and sold by merchants to the Jewish pilgrims who were coming there to celebrate the feast now have to be returned to their pastures or stalled and fed for an extra month. Moreover, in ancient times people traveled by foot, and it took many days to get somewhere and provisions had to be stored up and then transported, so postponing a trip wasn’t easy to do. Though these issues aren’t factors for modern man, they were issues when the Tanakh (Old Testament) was written, and this is the cultural context in which we are to understand the Torah’s commands. If we try to understand and apply scriptural truths outside of this context, we run the risk of coming up with a false hermeneutic and we can end up twisting the Scriptures anyway we want to make it say whatever we want. This is not good! Those who do this risk becoming false teachers, which is a serious sin biblically. It is this wrong approach to interpreting Scripture that has led the mainstream Christian church (as well as modern rabbinic Judaism) to the place it is today with all of its unbiblical and manmade doctrines and traditions that often make of none effect the word of Elohim. This is something we are trying to get away from. We don’t want to leave behind the lies of the church (and rabbinic Judaism) in pursuit of biblical truth only to create our own unbiblical lies and traditions!

For these reasons, we have chosen the more cautious, less speculative approach that involves finding sufficient aviv barley in the land of Israel as done in ancient times to make an omer by the first of the month, rather than speculating what might or might not occur visà-vis the barley crop in two or three weeks.

As more and more of YHVH’s people are returning to the ancient paths and biblical Truth of YHVH’s Torah, they are wanting to follow the biblical calendar instead of unbiblical manmade calendars such as the current calendar of rabbinic Judaism that dates to A.D. 360 and was approved by Roman Emperor Constantine. This means that many people are now going out and searching for barley in the land of Israel. This is good. However, as with everything, there are differing opinions on a lot of issues.

Who is right?

That’s up to you to decide.

For the reasons stated above, we have chosen to take a more cautious and less speculative approach that involves finding sufficient quantities of aviv barley at the start of the new near and well before the omer offering was to be made on First Fruits Day. Other people will take the more speculative and risky approach and predict ahead of time that there will be an omer’s worth of barley somewhere in the land of Israel in time for the omer offering. And they may be right. But who knows for sure if the grain will be ripe until it happens? What if it doesn’t happen after they have already declared the new year? Then what? This is confusion, and YHVH is not the author of confusion (1 Cor 14:33)!

If there is sufficient quantities of aviv barley by the first day of the year, then it logically follows that there will be sufficient quantities by First Fruits Day. By taking this approach, we believe that we are on more solid ground logically and biblically.

Both sides of the issues have their valid arguments, but we have chosen the more cautious approach over the more speculative one.

One more point needs to be made. The Torah mandates that one cannot eat any barley from their crop until the First Fruits Day offering is made (Lev 23:14). What if a farmer’s field of barley came ripe before First Fruits Day? Could he harvest his crop as long as he didn’t eat of it until the omer offering was made? Yes. This is because there is no prohibition in the Torah from doing this. Some people may point to Deuteronomy 16:9 as such a prohibition to cutting one’s barley before First Fruits Day. Let’s look at this passage carefully.

You shall count seven weeks for yourself; begin to count the seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the grain.

Now let’s compare this passage to some more detailed instructions found earlier in the Torah and one which is more specific to First Fruits Day.

Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: “When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before YHVH, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to YHVH.” (Lev 23:10–12)

In this passage, we find two actions occurring: reaping the barley harvest and subsequently bringing that harvest to the local priest who lived in the farmer’s own village or region. Nowhere does this verse say that the reaping of the grain and the day the priest must make the wave offering (on First Fruits Day) are on the same day. That is to say, if a farmer’s field of barley comes ripe earlier than First Fruits Day, he is not prohibited from reaping; he simply is prohibited from eating the barley before First Fruits Day (Lev 23:14). Therefore, since the Torah does not forbid it, the barley farmer has the Torah’s implicit permission to reap his crop before First Fruits Day (as long as he doesn’t eat any of it). This insures that he won’t lose his crop (i.e., the barley seed won’t fall to the ground), while he is waiting for the omer offering to be made on First Fruits Day.

Since the Leviticus 23:10–12 passage is the primary command pertaining to First Fruits Day and gives us more specific information and occurs prior to the Deuteronomy 16:9 passage, we believe our interpretation is the correct one in this case. This is because according to the basic rules of biblical interpretation (or hermeneutics), we are required to interpret a latter passage in light of an earlier passage and not vice versa. Therefore we do not consider the argument valid that one is prohibited from reaping their barley before First Fruits Day. They just are prohibited from eating their barley before First Fruits Day. 

For these reasons, we are convinced that the barley must be aviv before and not after the first day of the new biblical year.

 

How Torah Improves One’s Life & an Understanding of the Bible

Boy reading from a gevil parchment scroll. This one is written on goat skin.

A New Way of Life

Coming to an understanding of YHVH Elohim’s Torah-laws and then adopting a Torah-compliant lifestyle coupled with viewing the Bible through a Hebraic perspective and context has numerous positive benefits in one’s life. A pro-Torah approach to one’s life is more than just…

  • Changing which day you go to church on.
  • Changing your eating habits.
  • Celebrating different holidays.
  • And, if you’re really into it, growing a beard and wearing blue fringes or tassels. 

Pursuing a Torah-centric lifestyle will not only change some aspects of your lifestyle, but will also change how you view the Bible, how you view Yeshua or Jesus, Elohim or God, yourself, the Jews, the land of Israel as well as your thinking about a lot of other things, and how you view yourself and your fellow Christians. It will also vastly deepen and broaden your understanding of the Bible in ways you could never imagine. Let’s briefly explore a few of these areas.

The Main Lifestyle Changes Include

  • Observing the seventh day Sabbath
  • Celebrating the biblical feasts
  • Adopting a biblically kosher diet

But as we are about to learn, this is only the beginning.

A New Perspective on the Bible

A pro-Torah and Hebraic view of the Bible opens up multiple new vistas in one’s understanding of the Bible. Here a few of them:

  • A more traditional  Greco-Roman, Western, caricaturized view of Jesus gives way to a more accurate Hebraic or Jewish and Middle Eastern view of the real and authentic Yeshua.
  • One learns that Yeshua in his pre-incarnate state was the God of the Old Testament and the one who interacted with the patriarchs, Moses, the children of Israel and the prophets. As such, he is the One, as the Word of Elohim who would eventually became flesh, who gave the ancient Hebrews his Torah-law.
  • One learns that the thesis-antithesis paradigm of the Old Testament Torah-law or law of Moses model versus the New Testament grace model is a false and church-invented construct, and that the concepts of law and grace are not antithetical as the mainstream church teaches but are complimentary and indivisible issues, and are, in reality, two sides of the same coin.
  • One gains a deeper understanding of who and what the church is. The church was neither birthed nor spontaneously combusted on the day of Pentecost. Rather the church is a long term continuation of YHVH’s relationship with his people going back for thousands of years and continues to this day and involves all of the saints.
  • A new and greater holistic view of the Bible emerges versus only seeing the Scriptures in a seemingly disparate, disjointed and unrelated parts and pieces. The pieces of this vast puzzle finally begin to fall into place and a much more glorious and expansive picture than ever imagined emerges.
  • A Hebraic or Eastern view of the Bible replaces a limited and somewhat cartoon Greco-Roman and Western Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant view.
  •  One begins to understand the Bible through Hebraic block logic rather than Greek step or syllogistic logic. 
  • One gains a deeper understanding of the rules of biblical interpretation including understanding Scripture in its whole Bible, linguistic, historical and cultural context. One also learns about the four levels of understanding the Bible known as the PaRDeS method (i.e., the simple, hinted at, allegorical and mystical levels). One also gains an understanding of and an appreciation for the concept of exegesis over eisegesis when correctly interpreting or rightly dividing the Word of Elohim.
  • A better understanding of biblical history and future events including the Hebraic understanding of cycles emerges.
  • One gains a new understanding of Paul and the real issues facing the New Testament church. The controversial issue that Paul was dealing  with was not the law versus grace and whether or not YHVH’s Torah-law was relevant to Christians. Rather, the issue was about a works-based salvation versus salvation by grace through faith. In Paul’s writings, the validity of the Torah-law was never the issue contrary to what mainstream Christianity has falsely taught over the millennia.
  • One gains a whole new perspective and understanding of Old Testament Bible prophecies as one learns who the ancient players were and who their modern descendants are and how that relates to end times Bible prophecy.
  • One learns who the two houses of Israel were and who their modern descendants are and how that relates to each of us regarding our future destiny as it relates to the establishment YHVH’s kingdom on earth.

A New Perspective About Yourself

As one embraces the Torah and the Hebrew roots of one’s faith…

  • A new and fuller perspective on the biblical definition of sin emerges. One learns that YHVH’s Torah-law defines sin, not church traditions and the rules of men. This is both liberating and sets one’s life on a more solid spiritual foundation based on the Truth of the Bible as opposed to the unbiblical traditions of men.
  • One gains a new and fuller perspective and understanding on who you are as a grafted-in Israelite. You are no longer a Gentile who is without God and without hope, but are part of the commonwealth, nation, citizenship and covenants of Israel. You are a redeemed Israelite and the literal offspring of Abraham and you are part of YHVH’s chosen people along with our Jewish brothers. This is an enormously empowering concept!
  • One obtains a new and fuller understanding of what holiness is and how to become holy. The Bible defines what people, things, practices or times are holy, not men.
  • Your physical diet improves. This is because one becomes a label reader and discovers that one has not only been eating biblical non-kosher foods, but a lot of unhealthy junk and chemical ingredients as well. By eliminating these toxic substances from one’s diet, one’s health will improve because one stops eating physical junk food.
  • One’s spiritual diet will improve. One becomes a spiritual label reader and begins to compare what the mainstream church is teaching or not teaching compared to what the Bible really says. As a result, one stops feeding from the toxic mixture of truth and lies that are emanating from the pulpit, which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and one starts feeding from the whole Truth of the Bible, which is the tree of life. Thus, one’s spiritual health improves as one stops eating spiritual junk food.
  • One gains a deeper understanding of what it is to be the temple of the Holy Spirit and what it means to live a sanctified and holy life.

A New Perspective on Some Other Things

One gains…

  • A new love for the land of Israel.
  • A new love for the Jewish people.
  • A new love for YHVH’s lost and scattered sheep of the house of Israel. 
  • An expanded and deeper understanding of the gospel message including Yeshua’s remarriage to his Israelite bride and why he had to die on the cross to pay the sin price for his adulterous wife.
  • A fuller understanding on what it is to be the bride of Yeshua and how to prepare for and qualify to be his glorious and immortalized bride.
  • An understanding of the heavenly and temporal rewards that one will receive as a result Torah obedience versus not obeying YHVH’s Torah.
 

Does the New Covenant Contradict the Old Covenant?

The mainstream church has been teaching for years that because Christians are now under the new covenant, YHVH’s Torah-laws are now, to one degree or another, irrelevant. Moreover, the has view has been propagated that the old covenant was bad and was against the people of Elohim.

In this video, Nathan passionately explains how this view is a false teaching, a tradition of man that makes of non-effect the Word of Elohim, violates biblical Truth and impugns the character of Elohim/God and turns him into a hypocritical and duplicitous liar as well as a deceiver. God forbid that this would be the case! If so, then throw your Bibles away, and let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die and that is that!