In Hebrew, the seeming different words “womb” and “mercy” have nothing in common. But for the native speaker they are one and the same, because רֶחֶם rechem, “womb”, and רַחַם racham, “mercy”, “compassion” are derived from the same verbal root רָחַם racham, which has the meaning of “to caress”; by implication to love, especially to compassionate. Notice how these three words are spelled in Hebrew without vowel points, which do not exist...
Read More »What do we know about the early exodus Israel made out of Egypt? Not the one when Mosheh led the people under the mighty hand of the Most High, but an exodus that occurred thirty years earlier. A careful reading of the Torah shows that the Torah is virtually silent about the time when Israel dwelt in Egypt. There is a time-gap concerning the life of Israel in Egypt in the books of Genesis and Exodus. Genesis ends with the death of Yoseph and Exodus begins with the birth of...
Read More »There are gentiles who convert the Rabbinic Judaism to serve Elohim in a better way, as they see it. While there are others who convert to Judaism for the purpose to emigrate to the State of Israel and be one with the chosen nation. The former is a religious while the latter is a political decision; they both have nothing to do with what YHVH Elohim says to those who desire to join themselves YHVH. In the following, we would like to posit another way to look at this...
Read More »Elohim created the heavens and the earth and everything in it visible and invisible in six days, and then He rested on the seventh. And since then, the Creator has remained rested in the last 6,000 years? Or the world is in continual recreation. For lack of an alternative interpretation, the reader is led to apply the same mode of interpretation that the Creator made heaven and earth at the time of creation and does not at present make heaven and earth. Now, if the Creator...
Read More »There is a great deal of misunderstanding of two Hebrew words — almah and bethulah. Both words can overlap in their meaning, but they can also differ significantly. Most notably, this difference and misunderstanding are seen in the usage of the word almah in Isaiah 7:14, whose interpretation may lead to drawing a quick conclusion of either being a messianic prophecy or a fulfillment of a historic event, all depends on who reads and interprets the verse. In the following, we...
Read More »While science wants to convince us that the Earth is incredibly old, strangely enough, there is a scientific method that testifies to the opposite, namely, that the life on our planet is in fact incredibly young. This method no one wants to talk about is called “Radiocarbon-14 dating”: chemical analysis designed to estimate the age of geological specimens by measuring residual carbon in artifacts, animal, and human bones. This raises the inevitable question: Can...
Read More »The creation story narrates that Elohim created a firmament above the heaven. This term has been perplexing the readers of Genesis for a long time with no clear definition of what “firmament” is. Yet, the Scripture further assures us that this firmament declares the work of His creation, and the heaven is proclaiming it to the glory of Elohim. If the firmament, which the Creator placed above the heaven solely on account of His words on the second day of...
Read More »The First Commandment of the Covenant of the Most High, which He made with the nation of Israel states, “You shall have no other gods before Me”, meaning “no gods are to be brought before the Creator”. This interpretation is not grounded well in the Hebrew text, as the connection between “other gods” and “before Me” is not well established in such a translation. We will explain in the following that this is not the way to interpret the verse, because although...
Read More »Tanak (the Hebrew Scripture) is Judaism’s the most authoritative and foundational text. The word “TaNaK” is an acronym of Torah (The Five Books of Moses), Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings). The Tanak is revered as a direct revelation (the Torah and the Prophets) by the Creator first to the nation of Israel and then to the nations, and the third part as inspired writings. The first book of the Tanak is Genesis, and the last book is Malachi. On the other side is the...
Read More »Are we allowed to swear in the Name of YHVH? According to the Sermon on the Mount, we are not allowed to swear at all, while the Torah allows us. Is there any contradiction between the Torah and the Messiah? It is true, of course, as we are all aware, that if anyone who claims to be the Messiah has changed, annulled even one law of the Torah and taught the others to do so, he cannot be the Messiah. Yet, the Torah and the Sermon on the Mount appear to express two...
Read More »Did Ya’akov hate his wife, Leah? It appears so, when we read the verse which clearly says that YHVH saw that Leah was hated. But was she indeed hated by her husband Ya’akov? For the purpose of this study, we will focus on a single verse in Genesis 29 which indeed says that Leah was hated. In the following, however, we will argue that Ya’akov did not hate Leah, on the contrary, he loved her. By this we will not question the credibility of the Torah, let it...
Read More »“Life is sacred” is a fundamental principle in the Scripture. We have explained this principle in the series of articles Sanctity of Life. But still, it is equally important to clarify one more thing. If life indeed begins at conception and is sacred as the Scripture testifies, is that which we call “fetus” a human being? And if “fetus” is a human being, when does it receive its soul: at conception or at birth? In other words, the...
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