Posted by Navah on May 26, 2025 in Bible Study
A translation is not the words of God but the words of man. When you read a translation, you read the opinion of the translator. And the surest way of misunderstanding Torah is to read a translation. The greatest confusion comes when a Hebrew word is poorly or even intentionally translated to read what it actually does not. Such an example is the Hebrew word often rendered in foreign translations as “stranger”, “foreigner, “alien”. The choice of these words in the...
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Posted by Navah on May 25, 2025 in The Exodus
In this introduction to our survey of the Book of Numbers, we would like to clarify an obscure passage in the census of Israel with which this book begins. In the following, we would like to posit to the studious reader another way to look at this, specifically in reference to the censuses of Israel in Numbers 1 and Numbers 26. The matter will become clear to the reader once we understand why the second census shows fewer numbers than that of the first one and what...
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Posted by Navah on May 10, 2025 in The Origin
From the creation narrative in the first chapter of the Scripture, we learn that the main source of light on earth is the sun. But the sun and the moon (which reflects the sunlight) were not created until the fourth day. Yet there was light that came into existence on the first day of creation. Hence, we are coming to paradox: Light was created on the first day, but the sun was not created until the fourth day. The obvious question that is forced upon us is: How was that...
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Posted by Navah on Apr 27, 2025 in The Origin
Reality is not all that is seen. In the beginning, there was only the Eternal existing in singularity. No one and nothing else existed, and nothing else could exist without compromising His singularity and outside of His singularity. He (Ein Sof) is the absolute existence, and nothing and no one can exist outside of Him. Therefore, in order to create the world, the Creator “contracted” His presence to make space for creation to exist within Himself. Otherwise, nothing can...
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Posted by Navah on Apr 20, 2025 in Bible Study
If one puts a bookmark at the page called “The New Testament” and then compares the volume of “The New Testament” vs. “The Old Testament”, he/she will find the mere disproportionate “new” of “The New Testament”. “The New Testament” writings present about a quarter of the entire Bible, and if we consider the parallel accounts in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) this percentage drops down significantly. Therefore, it seems like the average Christian reads a...
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Posted by Navah on Apr 17, 2025 in Bible Study
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In the Gospel of Matthew, it appears that the author made a mistake in his account of the betrayal of Yeshua by falsely quoting the prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah). But if Matthew had mistakenly quoted Yirmiyahu, who was the prophet who should have been quoted? And besides, it is quite impossible to suppose that a Levite trained to serve in the Temple would have made such a blunder in the first place. The irony is that the New...
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Posted by Navah on Apr 15, 2025 in Bible Study
Did God allow us in Gen 9:3 to eat any animal flesh, as we desire? Man has absolute freedom of choice, which is not interfered with, and for this reason he can choose what he desires and can direct his activities to a given purpose. A man is free to choose, but he is not free of the consequences. In the issue of clean vs unclean food, there is a common mistake made when it is asserted that the Creator had changed His mind when in one place, He allows something and in...
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Posted by Navah on Mar 23, 2025 in Hebrew Study
Rabbeinu Nissim ben Reuven (Ran) of Gerona was a Spanish rabbi, Talmudic commentator, and philosopher. He said it very well: “The religions of all times promise rewards destined for the soul after its departure from the body, so as to distance the proof of their claims. Because they are not in possession of the truth, they cannot promise an imminent and tangible sign… But our Torah makes promises that can be confirmed in the here and now—something that no other...
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Posted by Navah on Mar 14, 2025 in Bible Study
A careful reading of the Hebrew Scripture shows that the Hebrew language has no particular words for matters private in nature. Instead, Hebrew uses euphemisms to only describe them in a figurative language, or to hint at, but never explicitly stated, in order that such things should be avoided when reading. In other words, Hebrew language being set-apart from all other languages has no particular names for the terms of intimate relation between a man and a woman. The use...
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Posted by Navah on Mar 5, 2025 in Bible Study
Idolatry undoubtedly is the most serious violation against the Creator of the universe. To Him and to Him alone, and to the exclusion of everyone else, honor is due. The most pronounced example of the prohibition of idolatry is what is spoken in the Covenant. The Eternal prohibited the making of images of any idol, of what is in heaven, what is in the earth, and what is in the water. Five chapters later, however, He told Mosheh to make two images of pure gold of what is in...
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Posted by Navah on Feb 22, 2025 in Bible Study
The whole subject of observing the laws of the Torah can become difficult to understand in detail, when we look only at what has been revealed to us in the Scriptural text. For instance, Torah says to cease labor on Shabbat and rest on the seventh day of the Creator but does not explicitly define what labor and rest are. Likewise with other commands. Mosheh in his last address to the nation asks us to love the Eternal with all we have and do His commands and statues, but...
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Posted by Navah on Feb 20, 2025 in The Exodus
The Bible is a book of questions, not of answers. Israel uniquely became a nation before it became a state. It had laws before it had a land. Thus, Israel can be counted as the only nation in the world that is an ethno-religious nation. Yet, we do not know her greatest leader’s Hebrew name. Exodus 2 tells us that a Levite married a woman from his tribe, and she conceived and bore a son. Later, Torah will tell us also that the man’s name was Amram, and the...
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