Month: August 2024

The Zohar Reveals the Key to Understanding:
The Concealed Word is the Son
By
James Scott Trimm

Last night, while studying the Zohar, I found something very interesting in one of it’s opening passages. The passage in question is commenting upon the opening words of the Torah בראשית ברא אלוהים “In the beginning created Elohim…” The Zohar (1:3b) reads:

בראשית (Be-reshit), In the beginning. Rabbi Yudai said, “What is בראשית (Be-reshit)? With Wisdom.

There is a very early tradition that interprets (reshit) as wisdom. Targum Yerushalmi to Gen. 1:1 reads “With wisdom God created…” The Zohar continues:

This is the Wisdom on which the world stands– through which one enters hidden, high mysteries. Here were engraved six vast, supernal dimensions, from which everything emerges, from which issued six springs and streams, flowing into the immense ocean. This is ברא שית (bara shit), created six, created from here. Who created them? The unmentioned, the hidden unknown.

Here Rabbi Yudai is giving a sod level interpretation of בראשית as ברא שית. Or “in the beginning” as “created six”, referring to the six dimensions of space (three dimensions in six opposing directions). (There is much about these three/six dimensions in the Sefer Yetzirah). The Zohar continues:

Rabbi Hiyya and Rabbi Yose were walking on the way. As they reached the site of a certain field, Rabbi Hiyya said to Rabbi Yose, “What you have said– ברא שית (bara shit)– is certainly true, for there are six supernal days in the Torah, not more; the others are concealed. But the Secrets of Creation we have discovered this:

“The holy hidden one engraved an engraving in the innards of a recess, punctuation by a thrust point. He engraved that engraving, hiding it away, like one who locks up everything under a single key, which locks everything within a single palace. Although everything is hidden away within that palace, the essence of everything lies in that key, which closes and opens. Within that palace lie hidden treasures, one greater than the other. Within that palace stand gates built cryptically, fifty of them. Carved into four sides, they were forty-nine.

These forty nine “gates” represent the relationship between each of the seven sefirot as the interact with one another (7*7 = 49). In the Sidur for the counting of the omer for the 49 days between the Firstfruits offering and Shavaot, each day is marked by noting one of these 49 combinations each day. The Zohar continues:

One gate has no side. No one knows whether it is above or below, it is shut. In those gates is one lock and one precise place for inserting the key, marked only by the impress of the key, known only to the key. Concerning this mystery it is written: בראשית ברא אלהים (Be-reshit bara Elohim), In the beginning God created. בראשית (Be-reshit) is the key enclosing all. closing and opening. Six gates are contained in the key that closes and opens.

Up to this point, I have been quoting the Zohar in English from the Pritzker Edition. But there is much to learn from studying the Zohar in the original Aramaic. So as I continue, I will now quote the Aramaic, and provide my own literal translation of the Aramaic:

ושית תרעין כלילן ביה בההוא מפתחא דסגיר ופתח כד סגיר אינון תרעין וכליל לון בגויה כדין ודאי כתיב בראשית מלה גליא בכלל מלה סתימאה ובכל אתר ברא מלא סתימאה איהו סגיר ולא פתח

And six gates are contained in that key that closes and opens. When it closes those gates, enclosing them within itself, then indeed בראשית (Be-reshit) is a revealed Word combined with a concealed Word. The Son (ברא) is always concealed, closing, not opening.

Here I have translated ברא as “The Son”. Ancient Aramaic was written without vowels. One may vocalize ברא as “Creator” or “Create” or in Aramaic as “The Son”. In his book Studies in the Zohar p. 146-152, Jewish Israeli academic Yehudah Liebes argues that the meaning here is “The Son”. The Zohar several times refers to the Son of Yah and to a Divine Son (see my previous blog The Son of Yah in the Zohar) This is the same spelling of the Aramaic word for “Son” used in the Old Syriac and Peshitta. The seventeenth century Rabbi Shlomo Meir Ben Moshe, who came to the conclusion that Yeshua was the Messiah, saw in the word בראשית the phrase בר אשית I will appoint, set up, or place the Son. The Zohar continues:

אמר רבי יוסי ודאי הכי הוא ושמענא לבוצינא קדישא דאמר הכי דמלה סתימאה איהו ברא סגיר ולא פתח ובעוד דהוה סגיר במלה דברא עלמא לא הוי ולא אתקיים והוה חפי על כלא תה”ו שלטא האי תה”ו עלמא לא הוה ולא אתקיים

Rabbi Yose said, Certainly so. I have heard the Holy Lamp [i.e. Rabbi Shimon], say that the concealed Word is the Son, closing and not opening. As long as it was shut by the Word of the Son, the world could not be and not be established. Complete chaos would have prevailed covering all that was. And when chaos prevailed, there would not have been a world, and it would not have been established.

This statement in the Zohar definitely recalls the words of Yochanan as preserved in the Aramaic Old Syriac text of Yochanan 1:1-3

ברשית איתוהי הוא מלתא והו מלתא איתוהי הוא לות אלהא ואלהא איתוהי הוא הו מלתא הנא איתוהי הוא ברשית לות אלהא כלמדם בה הוא ובלעדוהי אף לא חדא הות הו דין מדם דהוא

In the beginning was the Word; and He, the Word, was with Elohim; and He, the Word, was Elohim. This [Word] was in the beginning with Elohim. Everything came to be by him, and apart from him not even one thing came to be.

Then in verse 14

ומלתא פגרא הות ואגנת בן וחנין שובחה איך שובחא דיחידא דמן אבא כד מלא טיבותא ושררא

And the Word became a body and it dwelt among us, and we say his glory as the glory as an only one from the Father full of grace and truth..

Then in verse 18

לאלהא מן מתום אנש לא חזיהי יחידא ברא דמן עובה דאבוהי הו אשתעי לן

Elohim, never has any man seen him; an only one, a Son from the bosom of his Father, he has declared him to us.

(See also my previous blog The Only Begotten Light)

The imagery of forty nine gates and a key that opens and shuts, reminds us of Revelation 1:13 where Yochanon sees a vision in which we read that Yochanon saw the Son in the midst of seven menorahs (Rev. 1:12f). Of course a menorah has seven branches, so this is a total of forty nine lights. In this vision Yochanan is told to write “he that has the keys of David, he that opens, and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens.” (Rev. 3:7). (Citing Isaiah 22:22).

This key also recalls the key mentioned in our Zohar passage above. The commentators on the Zohar recognize this key as Understanding, which unlocks a lock which represents Wisdom. In the Zohar passage above, this is the Concealed Word which may be identified with “The Son”. And this recalls the words of Luke as preserved in the Aramaic of the Old Syriac text, where Yeshua says:

וי לכון ספרא דטשיתון אקלידא דאידעתא אנתון לא עלתון ולאילין דעלין כליתון

Oy to you scribes, who have concealed the keys of knowledge. You yourselves have not entered and they that are entering you have hindered. (Luke 11:52)

This key is the concealed Word, the Son, who is revealed to us in the Messiah, Yeshua.

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Understanding the New Covenant
By
James Scott Trimm

One of the most misunderstood topics in Christendom and even in Messianic Judaism, is that of the “New Covenant”. Many in Messianic Judaism refer to the books of the so-called “New Testament” as the “Brit Chadashah” (New Covenant) which plays into this fallacy. The compilation of books written by Yeshua’s Emissaries, were named the “New Testament” in Christendom, but this collection of books in no way is that which the Scriptures call the “New Covenant” (“Testament” and “Covenant” are the same word in biblical languages). Not only does this detract from a real understanding of what the “New Covenant” in the Scriptures actually is, but it plays into a theology that identifies the Tanak as the “Old Testament” or “Old Covenant”, relegating the Tanak to irrelevance. A better name for the compilation of books known as the “New Testament” is “Ketuvim Netzarim” (Writings of the Nazarenes).

So just what is the “New Covenant” and how was it understood by the original Jewish followers of Yeshua as the Jewish Messiah of Judaism? To answer this question we must look at three sources of material:

1. What is said about the “New Covenant” in the Tanak?

2. What is said about the “New Covenant” in the Ketuvim Netzarim?

3. How was the New Covenant understood by the Essenes in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

4. How is the New Covenant understood in the Rabbinic commentators?

The Tanak on the New Covenant

The “New Covenant” is mentioned by name only once in the Tanak (Jer. 31:30 in Jewish/Hebrew editions and 31:31 in other editions). Jeremiah writes:

30 (31) Behold, the days come, says YHWH, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
31 (32) Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them, says YHWH:
32 (33) But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says YHWH, I will put my Torah in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their Elohim, and they shall be my people.
33 (34) And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know YHWH: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says YHWH; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
(Jer. 31 30-33 (31-34)

Now the first thing we should note is that the Hebrew for “new covenant” is ברית חדשה Brit Chadashah which can mean “New Covenant” but can also mean “Renewed Covenant”, as Jewish commentators understand it here.

The phrase “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt” has a very strong parallel to the Torah phrase “besides the covenant which he made with them in Horev.” (Deut. 28:69 (29:1)) In Deut. 28:69 (29:1) this phrase is used to contrast the Covenant at Mt. Moab, made at the end of the forty years in the wilderness, with the covenant made at Mt. Horev (also known as Mt. Sinai) at the beginning of Israel’s time in the wilderness.

There are many parallels between the covenant at Moab and the “renewed covenant” mentioned by Jeremiah, when we compare this whole section of Jeremiah with this whole section of Deuteronomy:

Jeremiah’s “New Covenant” appears to be synonymous with the Covenant at Moab, a return to Torah.

The New Covenant in the Ketuvim Netzarim

The references to the New Covenant in the Ketuvim Netzarim fall into three categories: The Last Supper (Matt. 26:28; Mk. 14:24; Luke 22:20 and 1Cor. 11:25) ; 2Cor. 3:6; and Hebrews (7:22; 8:8, 13; 9:15-20; 12:24)

In the accounts of the so-called “Last Supper” (Matt. 26:28; Mk. 14:24; Luke 22:20 and 1Cor. 11:25) Yeshua takes the cup of wine and identifies it as “my blood of the New Covenant which is shed for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:28).

The Last Supper was actually a Passover seder, and here Yeshua is identifying his blood with the “cup of deliverance”, the blood of the Passover Lamb and the Yayin HaMeshumar.

Of course Yeshua’s blood was the blood of the Lamb that was slain from the foundations of the earth (Rev. 13:8). As such the animal sacrifices were always merely symbolic, pointing forward to the death of Messiah. In this way. Yeshua’s blood was the true blood of the Torah covenant as well as the blood of the Renewed Covenant.

In 2Corinthians 3:4-18 Paul states that Messiah “has made us servants of the New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit”. Paul emphasizes the spiritual nature of Torah renewal, probably to contrast it with the Essene “New Covenant” commitment, which included the “Works of the Law”. a group of purity regulations about which they believed the Pharisees and Sadducees were to lax, and by which they could purify their way to Salvation.

Finally the New Covenant is a primary topic of the Book of Hebrews (7:22; 8:8, 13; 9:15-20; 12:24). Hebrews deals with the inner meaning of the Yom Kippur service with Yeshua’s death being the sacrificial offering of the New Covenant as symbolized by the Yom Kippur service.

The Essenes and the New Covenant

As I have said many times before, the Nazarenes were an unlikely union of Essenes and Pharisees. The very first Nazarenes were people of an Essene background.

The New Covenant was a very important concept to the Essenes. The Damascus Document explains how the Essene Community was born when they went together to Damascus, and there they entered together into their understanding of the “New Covenant” and they considered themselves “members of the Covenant” (Damascus Document 2,2)

The Manual of Discipline, also called “The Community Rule” details the complete ritual by Which Essenes would enter the New Covenant (Manual of Discipline 1,16-2,18; 5, 7-13). The Levites would pronounce a blessing upon the initiates. Then the initiates would say:

נעוינו פשענו חטאנו הרשענו אנו ואבותינו מלפנינו בהלכתנו קרי חוקי אמת וצדק [אלהים] עשה משפטו בנו ובאבותינו ורחמי חסדו גמל עלינו מעולם ועד עולם

We have acted perversely, we have transgressed, we have sinned, we have done wickedly, ourselves and our fathers before us, in that we have gone counter to the truth. [Elohim] has been right to bring His judgment upon us and upon our fathers. Howbeit, always from ancient times He has also bestowed His mercies upon us all, and so will He do for all time to come.

After this pronouncement the Priests would invoke a blessing on all of those who “cast their lot with Elohim”, then the Levites would pronounce a curse for all of those who instead “cast their lot with Belial”.

This reference to casting of lots fits well with the book of Hebrews and it’s association of the New Covenant with the Yom Kippur ceremony, in which two goats are selected and lots are cast, one is appointed for YHWH and the other for Azazel.

Rabbinic Judaism and the New Covenant

Very little is said in the ancient Rabbinic literature about the “New Covenant”. The Targum to Jeremiah 31:30 (31:31) is just a literal Aramaic rendering of the Hebrew. There is no mention of the “New Covenant” in the Talmud, Midrash Rabbah or the Zohar. However, there are some very interesting insights from the classic Jewish commentators.

Speaking of the Covenant at Moab (Deut. 28:69 (29:1) RASHI writes of the words “besides the covenant” saying this refer to “the curses in Leviticus (26:14-39), which were proclaimed on Sinai.” Which reminds us of Paul’s contrast of the “letter of the Torah” and “spirit of the Torah” in relation to the “New Covenant” (2Cor. 3:4-18).

And a very insightful comment is made by RAMBAN (in his commentary to Deuteronomy 30:6). A comment that could almost have been written by a Nazarene:

And YHWH your Elohim will circumcise your heart (Deuteronomy 30:6) It is this which the Rabbis have said, “If someone comes to purify himself, they assist him” [from on High]. The verse assures you that you will return to Him with all your heart and He will help you.

This following subject is very apparent from Scripture: Since the time of Creation, man has had the power to do as he pleased, to be righteous or wicked. This [grant of free will] applies likewise to the entire Torah period, so that people can gain merit upon choosing the good and punishment for preferring evil. But in the days of the Messiah, the choice of their [genuine] good will be natural; the heart will not desire the improper and it will have no craving whatever for it. This is the “circumcision” mentioned here, for lust and desire are the “foreskin” of the heart, and circumcision of the heart means that it will not covet or desire evil.”

Man will return at that time to what he was before the sin of Adam, when by his nature he did what should properly be done, and there were no conflicting desires in his will, as I have explained in Seder Bereshit ( Gen. 2:9).

It is this which Scripture states in [the Book of] Jeremiah 31:30], ‘Behold, the days come,’ says YHWH, ‘that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers ..etc. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Eternal, I will put my Law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it.

This is a reference to the annulment of the evil instinct (yetzer ra) and to the natural performance by the heart of its proper function. Therefore Jeremiah said further, and I will be their Elohim, and they shall be My People; and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: ‘Know YHWH; ‘for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.’

Now, it is known that the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth and it is necessary to instruct them, but at that time it will not be necessary to instruct them [to avoid evil] for their evil instinct (yetzer ra) will then be completely abolished. And so it is declared by Ezekiel, ‘A new heart will I also give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will cause you to walk in My statutes.’ ” (Ezekiel 36:26)

The new heart alludes to man’s nature, and the [new] spirit to the desire and will. It is this which our Rabbis have said : “And the years draw nigh, when you shall say: I have no pleasure in them; these are the days of the Messiah, as they will offer opportunity neither for merit nor for guilt,” for in the days of the Messiah there will be no [evil] desire in man but he will naturally perform the proper deeds and therefore there will be neither merit nor guilt in them, for merit and guilt are dependent upon desire.”

Here RAMBAN associates the New Covenant with the “days of the Messiah” and a process of overcoming the Yetzer Ra (evil inclination) and a man returning to “what he was before the sin of Adam“. This fits well with Yeshua’s statement concerning the wine representing the blood of the “New Covenant”:

But I say to you I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until the day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom. (Matthew 26:29)

This process will not be complete until Messiah returns and the words of Jeremiah concerning the New Covenant will finally be fulfilled:

And they will teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know YHWH: for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith YHWH… (Jer. 31:33(34))

And as RAMBAN concludes:

there will be no [evil] desire in man but he will naturally perform the proper deeds and therefore there will be neither merit nor guilt in them, for merit and guilt are dependent upon desire.”

Conclusion

The so-called “New Covenant” is not the books known as the “New Testament” (which are better called the Ketuvim Netzarim, the Writings of the Nazarenes.) nor is it a brand new Christian Covenant. The New Covenant is actually a “Renewed Covenant” identifiable with the Covenant at Moab. In the Second Temple Era the Essenes had a ceremony recalling the Yom Kippur ceremony, whereby they would affirm their renewed commitment to YHWH’s Torah. Yeshua taught us that his blood, symbolized by the Passover wine (and the blood of the Passover Lamb) was the blood of this Renewed Covenant. We can be initiated into this Covenant in the present, however it is a process that will be completed upon the return of Messiah, when he will drink the cup with us in the Messianic Kingdom.

The restoration is upon us! But the Enemy will stop at nothing in his attacks! I am asking for your help, now more than ever. Our situation is dire. I need your support to continue this work! Donations are low and expenses are up. If donations don’t pick up very quickly, we are going to find ourselves homeless. I cannot make it any plainer than that.

Donations can be sent by Paypal to donations@wnae.org or by Zelle or Go Fund Me.

Click HERE to donate

(Manual of Discipline 5, 7-13)