Oy Searchers! Need help? – April 2017

Image from www.stlucasucc.org

04/24/17 “origins of israelite prophecy remain veiled in obscurity. discuss” – What is the fascination with this post which is the most clicked and frequently visited article? Find out!

Revisit: Q&A: “Israel prophecy” – “veiled in obscurity”?

04/18/17 – “caleb bible meaning” – The UNchosen – My servant Caleb – a different spirit

04/16/17 – “can gentile get hshem” – Not sure what this search term means; possibly, the searcher wishes to know if a non-Israelite or non-Jew, a “Gentile” could approach and be accepted by “hshem”.

HaShem is Hebrew for “the Name”, the term used in ArtScroll Tanach and Jewish Bibles that do not wish to say the Tetragrammaton name of their God. Christian as well as some Jewish translations simply use LORD for the Name YHWH.

The answer to this searcher’s query is: God is a universal God! The God of Israel, YHWH, is also the God of the Gentiles, the Nations, the Peoples. It’s just that He started with a specific people to whom He would teach His Torah so they could model the Torah life. The Divine expectation is that other nations would be attracted not only to Torah but would lead them to want to know the Giver of the Torah, the God Who revealed Himself, His Name and His Way on Sinai through His prophet Moses. When He cut a covenant with the people He liberated from Egyptian bondage, a people He had formed through a particular line indicated in the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and from Jacob the 12 sons, 12 tribes, mixed within the Israelites were Gentiles.

Within the “mixed multitude” that left Egypt were Gentiles, why else would they be called “mixed multitude” if they were all Israelites? So even if the covenant on Sinai was specific for Israel, His chosen people with a divine destiny to be His “light to the Gentiles”, there were representative Gentiles in the mix. Why else would there be nonstop instruction to treat with kindness and accommodate— the alien, foreigner, the “stranger among you”.

Here are posts that might clarify:

04/15/17 “the sons of abraham to hagar and keturah” –

Journey of Faith – Sarah dies, Abraham takes another wife

04/14/17 “benmara of hearoyisrael.net” – 2nd search entry, this time including the pseudonym of the owner/administrator of the website; please refer to the first entry below:

04/14/17 “hearoyisrael.net” – We are not surprised that this search term landed on our website. We hosted the administrator/owner of the website hearoyisrael.net circa 2013, for about 6 months; he went by the pseudonym “Benmara” (Hebrew for “son of bitterness”); a unique individual in many ways, definitely one of a kind. We featured his teaching as well as the unfinished bible translation he was working on which he titled “His Name Tanakh”. That translation was what made us link up with him, we were looking for a version that used the Name YHWH. None of the Jewish bibles would use it; The Artscroll TANAKH used “HaShem” (The Name) instead of the Tetragrammaton while the JPS (Jewish Publication Society) used the same term used in the Christian Old Testament, “LORD”. In fact, as unfinished as the version was, we made bookform printouts and added it to the Sinai 6000 library, so we still have copies of it. What made the version interesting to us at the time was the substitution of Hebrew names, titles, words in the text, similar to the Messianic Jewish Bible except the latter was really a Christian Bible in Jewish Dress”. It appears Benmara was not able to continue maintaining his website after 2013, actually and admittedly a good resource for non-Rabbinical and non-Christian interpretation of the Tanakh, from a different perspective of a self-taught and original Scripture-interpreter . We have some posts that still mention him and his work. We believe that as soon as he finds a patron who will support his website, both he and his website will be back on the world-wide-web.

04/12/17 “All thy children shall be taught” – This appeared 2 days in a row, it is the caption in an image we used for a post with a quote from Isaiah 54:13:

“And all thy children shall be taught of Yahweh

and great shall be the peace of thy children.”

And indeed, that should be a promise every parent should hold on to, but it won’t happen unless parents also obey Deuteronomy 6:4-9, the very words in the Shema:

“Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH is one.

You shall love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

All_thy_children_shall_be_taug

04/10/17 – Strangely enough, old posts under this category from different past years are being clicked aside from the current; I had to check out why. I was surprised myself to find out how useful and instructive they still are because the commentary and facts don’t get outdated and are ever relevant to date, just like YHWH’s Torah, His Guidelines for Life are for any people, culture, times. Isn’t that a wonder, just like the rest of His Created world and the universe? What an all-wise God our King YHWH is!

Here’s a sample entry/answer:

04/27/15 “the jewish torah” –

The Torah of YHWH is not only for “Jewish” application but for universal application; it was part of the Covenant with Israel on Sinai that the mixed multitude that was liberated from bondage in Egypt would now have a new Master and live by this Master’s Way of Life — the Torah.

By calling the Torah “Jewish” it promotes the Christian teaching that the Torah is only for the Jews, since Christians are to live by “grace” and not by “law”. The Torah of YHWH was given to Israel to model this way of living so that all nations will see the wisdom of living it and will wish to live by it. This is emphasized in the reiteration of the “law” in Deuteronomy, when Moses repeated the Sinai revelation to the second generation Israelites who were born free, born in the desert and who would enter the Land of Promise led by Joshua and Caleb, the two surviving the 1st generation that left Egypt. That said, here are some posts that might help understand that the Torah is universal and not for Israel alone:

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04/06/17 “photos of holiness to the lord” – Hmmm, frankly I was curious about this myself, and so I googled it just to see what this searcher did find and expectedly, what’s on the net is what is understood and accepted as the Christian definition of “holiness”. So much so, the dictionary defines it thus:

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holy |ˈhəʊli| adjective (holier, holiest)

1 dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose; sacred: the Holy Bible | the holy month of Ramadan.

• (of a person) devoted to the service of God: saints and holy men.

• morally and spiritually excellent: I do not lead a holy life.

2 dated or humorous used in exclamations of surprise or dismay: holy smoke!

ORIGIN Old English hālig, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German heilig, also to whole.

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So what’s wrong with that? Well, secular definitions most likely follow what is accepted in the ‘domain’ where a word would most likely or normally occur, and in this case, “holy” would be associated with religion, lumped with words like: sanctity, sanctify, sacred, saint, etc.

So how indeed does one translate “holy” into an image, a visual representation? It’s similar to all those big doctrinal words used by Christianity: sanctification, justification, glorification, none of which are easily demonstrated through concrete images.

Most likely what this searcher saw on the web were the same as my search: images of churches, fellowship centers, sayings that didn’t help much like:

“I am holy so you must be holy”;
“Worship the Lord in beauty and holiness”;
“Hope and holiness”;
“The Holiness of God”;
“Love God, pursue Holiness”;
“Walking in Holiness”;
“Perfecting Holiness in the fear of the Lord” . . . etc. etc. etc.

Image feorm spaceamigos.com

Well, after all those sayings, I’m sure the searcher was still clueless because “holiness” is one of those abstract words that have to be explained in many ways and usually, a simple face with a halo over the head is the unofficial icon, suggesting all the synonyms listed in the Thesaurus: “saintly, godly, saintlike, pious, pietistic, religious, devout, God-fearing, spiritual, canonized, beatified, ordained, deified; righteous, good, virtuous,” etc.

The original Hebrew simply is translated as “set apart” or “separated“, from what? From the common, the profane, suggesting ‘unlike all others’. Jewish tradition set apart not only the 7th day but family preparations go as far as ‘set-apart’ dishes-utensils-special table settings specific for the Sabbath celebration. One looks at the peculiarity of Israel as a set-apart nation from all other nations, a set-apart people, “holy” . . . for the purpose designated and destined for them by their God — a “holy people” who will be His “light to the Gentiles” who will model His Torah way of life. One might say they don’t “act holy” – – – well, they’re already “holy” as in “set apart for YHWH’s purposes for them” . . . get it?

Long-winded answer, a usual, for one simple word: by the way, are you “holy” and in what way? So, how now would you provide this searcher what he needs: “photos of holiness to the lord”, hmm?

04/01/17 “noahide” – Gentiles who are not into Christianity and don’t wish to join Judaism check out this group who call themselves “Noahides”. Just so we don’t misrepresent them, check out their website: http://noahide.org.

Here are articles we have posted relating to the biblical Noah:

04/01/17 – “revisit israel” –

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Welcome to Sinai 6000, dear visitors! Whether you’ve landed here accidentally, incidentally or intentionally, linger for a while and check out our 1000+ posts, written and accumulated in the seven years that the “S6K” core community has functioned as a recognizable Gentile Torah-obedient movement. We are a “movement” and a recommended “lifestyle” in sync with the Guidelines for Living issued by the Self-Revealing God on Sinai, YHWH is His Name! He is the God of Israel we have come to embrace and recognize as the One and Only God, a Unity, not a Trinity. He is the God of the Nations, not only of Israel, but He is recognizable in His Torah. So we recommend getting to know Him through His Self-Declarations. This website is about Him primarily, and about Gentiles seeking an alternative to major world religions, wishing only to live according to what the One True God has prescribed for all humanity, Jew and Gentile, the two classifications of people-groupings in the Hebrew Scriptures.

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Lately, we have noticed visitors who have not only returned repeatedly, but have been downloading every single post in this website, nonstop daily. While we consider it a great compliment that two visitors specifically from Mariveles, Bataan, Philippines have dedicatedly sweeped through our SiteMap, we are of course curious to meet you and wish you would connect with us by email, if only to inform us why the keen interest in every single post! Here’s the link: nsbsinai6000@gmail.com. We have no other way of reaching you so contact us, OK? Perhaps we could be of more assistance to you, for whatever purpose you are downloading this whole website!

That said, and while we’re waiting for entries— search terms from visitors looking for specific topics — here’s welcoming the 4th month in the Gregorian calendar, the season of spring in 4-season areas of our God-designed earth, and “dry season” (in contrast to “wet season”) on our side of the globe. What is unique about April?

Here’s an FYI from:

http://www.ducksters.com/history/aprilinhistory.php

About the Month of April

April is the 4th month of the year and has 30 days. Season (Northern Hemisphere):

Spring Holidays:

April Fools’ Day

Autism Awareness Day

Easter Earth Day

Arbor Day National Poetry Month

National Arab American Heritage Month

Teacher Appreciation Week

Jazz Appreciation Month

Alcohol Awareness Month

Cancer Control Month Symbols of April

Birthstone: Diamond

Flower: Daisy and the sweet pea

Zodiac signs: Aries and Taurus History:

In the initial Roman calendar April was the second month of the year until January and February were added in 700 BC.

It is thought that the name April comes from the Latin word “to open” and describes the trees opening at springtime. It could also be that the name comes from the Greek goddess Aphrodite.

April in Other Languages Chinese (Mandarin) – sìyuè Danish – april French – avril Italian – aprile Latin – Aprilis Spanish – abril Historical Names: Roman: Aprilis Saxon: Eosturmonath (Easter month) Germanic: Oster-mond

Fun Facts about April

It is the second month of spring.

It is a time of planting and spring cleaning.

In the Southern Hemisphere, April is the same as October in the Northern Hemisphere.

The diamond of April symbolizes innoncence. \

The Boston Marathon is held during April.

In Ancient Rome the month of April was sacred to the goddess Venus.

The Japanese fiscal year for most businesses starts on April 1st.

In England there are many cuckoo festivals. The arrival of the cuckoo bird in April is a signal that spring has arrived.

April is the month when the professional baseball season begins in the United States.

Source: Exodus/Shemoth 24 – "the sight of the Glory of YHVH (was) like a consuming fire" -- We gentiles living in this 21st century are able to experience that climactic moment [God appearing on Sinai] by reading and studying this portion of the TORAH. Indeed, we see YHWH not quite as dramatically as the mixed multitude did, but perhaps even better through these accounts recorded in Exodus. There is a saying that hindsight is 20/20 vision, i.e., we begin to see and understand the question marks in our past only later in our lives, as we mature and hopefully become wiser and more introspective about the meaning or seeming meaninglessness of happenings in history, whether personal, national, or universal. Søren Kierkegaard adds a twist to this: “Only 20:20 vision is hindsight. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” As we endeavor to understand each portion in the TORAH of YHWH, much of it will seem irrelevant to our current situation but if we see beyond the time-bound cultural and religious situations and begin to understand what truly has not change—human nature and the Great Revelator who designed the perfect blueprint for living in peace, happily and contentedly with family, community, country and the nations, the unquestionable conclusion is: TORAH is relevant to ALL humankind, not just to Israel, to this very day.

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