Lunch & Learn - Jewish Sources

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to lunch and learn Jewish sources. Okay, this is gonna be exciting. Rabbi did a great plug for this earlier how important it is. There you go. Sold. That's right. Good salesperson. And so for, for those of you online that may not know us, and for those of you watching at a later time when we post this to YouTube, just a quick reference is that Sabrina and I are not Jewish, we are just Jewish. And so we, we've been in this movement for the last, I don't know, 25 years or so. And we, we have enjoyed the journey and studied quite a bit over the years and we're loving being able to share a little bit about what we've learned. And so we're going to be talking about Jewish sources and the whole. I love the analogy Sabrina made of thinking of an ocean and going on an ocean, just seeing all kinds of stuff. This is what it's like once you start digging into Jewish sources, Jewish texts. Okay. And so I also like this handouts you can grab right here. And so I like the analogy Daniel Lancaster used to, at one point, he said, when you're, when you get married to somebody or even when you're about to get married to someone, it's really, really important to know the family. Okay. And so we have been married, so to speak. We have been brought in, those of us especially from the nations like us, not Jewish. And we, we think all there is is this Bible. Okay. But guess what? There's a whole world of Jewish writings that are connected to that and have, we have 3,000 years or so of explanations and connections and all that kind of stuff. This is what you need right there. And how all of this works together, how we live it out and how, how it applies to different people in different ways and, and just all kinds of stuff that's involved. And so, and I like what Rabbi said earlier. We said, he said we are influenced. If we think we're just influenced by the Bible, we are deceiving ourselves. Right? We're influenced by other texts, Whether it's John MacArthur or the Seventh Day Adventist, you know, materials or whatever denomination we came from or whatever, we have been influenced. And that has affected our understanding, our thinking, our reasoning, our logic and so forth. And so this is a good way to sort of help shift that a little bit and become more Jewish minded and, and come at things from a more Jewish approach. Okay, so there, this class should really be like 13 classes, but I broke it into 13 sections. We're going to hit them quickly and hard and we're Going to go in a fast clip, but I will tell you this, especially people online, but people in. In person here, they need to know as well. You can download it. I'm going to post my full notes that has ton more stuff on it onto the Shalom at Home event. So you can download it later. Okay. [00:03:23] Speaker B: And the. And the feed, because we. We'll put it both places. Because the feed and then the comment section under the event itself. [00:03:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:32] Speaker B: So maybe you can find it. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Yep. [00:03:34] Speaker B: It's not so. [00:03:35] Speaker A: Right. So we'll. We'll figure out a way. A good place to post it. So it'll give a lot more. [00:03:41] Speaker B: Y' all see somebody waiting, let me know. [00:03:44] Speaker A: It'll give you a lot more information. But right now we're just going to give you a sampling, so buckle in. This is where your notes start. Collectively, the Hebrew Scriptures is where we need to start. And you want to talk. You said you wanted to talk about the scriptures, right? [00:03:57] Speaker B: Sure. Okay. Okay. So collectively, the Hebrew Scriptures, AKA the Old Testament, are called Tanakh or Tanakh. It is comprised of three sections. One, the Torah, which is the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The second section is the. In the Neviim, the Prophets. The third section of the Tanakh is the Ketuvim. Okay. But when a cough is at the end, it becomes. So that's why we say Tanakh, but it's actually a Kaf for Ketuvim writings, the prophets and the writings together. Okay, so if we took off the Torah, take off the first five books, take those off, what we're left with is the Nevi' im and the Ketuvim, which is nach. So if you ever see that term or hear that term, nach, it means that part of the. The Bible. Okay. You can do a Nach Yomi study, which is a daily, like a chapter a day, starting in Judges, going all the way to the end of the Old Testament. [00:05:03] Speaker A: There's a lot of them you can find on podcasts and YouTube feeds. [00:05:06] Speaker B: I highly recommend. Okay. Because we got lots of Torah study, but we need a nach study too. We need to understand the rest of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures. Because of this arrangement, the books are not in the same order as the Christian Bible. Whereas the Hebrew Scriptures in the Christian Bible end with Malachi. The Tanakh ends with Second Chronicles. Okay, so I have a handout if you hold that up, if y' all want to come by and look at [00:05:37] Speaker A: it later, you can just pass around. [00:05:38] Speaker B: You can. Well, I'll get into that. [00:05:41] Speaker A: So. [00:05:42] Speaker B: So this is a breakdown of. Of what the Hebrew Scriptures originally or in a. In a Jewish publicized Bible would look like. Okay. It's a different order. If you have Stern's the Complete Jewish Bible, he's got it in that. In the Jewish order and so forth. And there were some books, the 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles. Those were one book, but then they got separated into 1 and 2, 1 and 2, 1 and 2 later. Okay. So. And then just an extra for us as Messianic believers, our New Testament, and we want to kind of start shifting away from that term too, because New Old has a. Comes with a lot of baggage. So there is a different way to refer to the apostolic Scriptures, and that is an acronym, just like Tanakh is an acronym stands for the. The Torah, the Nevim, and Ketuvim. We have Bima, which stands for the Besora. Besorot, the Gospels, the Maase, the Acts of the Apostles, the Igorot, the letters, and then the Hit, Gala. Sorry, Hit Galut, which is Revelation. So there's. [00:06:58] Speaker A: It's not the right order to spell that, though. [00:07:00] Speaker B: I know. [00:07:00] Speaker A: Anyway. [00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Because there's a Yud. There's a Yud and then a Hay. That's. Okay. All right, number two in your notes, a Chumash. And I'll grab these two examples. A Chumash is a printed edition of just the Torah, the first five books. Okay. Typically divided into weekly portions, which are of the Parasha in plural, would be parshiot, and often accompanied by translations and traditional commentaries. It normally contains the full set text of Targum Ankylos, which is going to be. [00:07:39] Speaker A: In this version. It's going to be this tiny. [00:07:42] Speaker B: So this is a stone edition, and we. [00:07:43] Speaker A: Tiny Hebrew text right here on the shelf. That's actually not Hebrew. That's Aramaic. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Aramaic. [00:07:49] Speaker A: This is the Hebrew text of the. Of the Torah. This is the Aramaic translation of that. [00:07:55] Speaker B: Which is actually number three. [00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:57] Speaker B: And we'll skip back to number two, but let's look at number three. A Targum. That's your blank. Targum T A R, G U, M. A Targum is an ancient Aramaic translation and interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. So in this Chumash, this edition, we have Targum Ankylos Darren just showed you. And it's beside the Hebrew text. And a large portion of Rashi's commentary is also here in a special font called the Rashi script. [00:08:27] Speaker A: That's beautiful below right here in this area. [00:08:29] Speaker B: So it Sort of looks like Hebrew, [00:08:30] Speaker A: but it's, it's funky. [00:08:31] Speaker B: It's funky looking. That's the Rashi script. Okay. It is designed for study and synagogue use, making the Torah accept accessible for regular reading and learning. So we have a, a good number of these on in the foyer on the shelf for you to, to get a Chumash and use to study from, read from. [00:08:51] Speaker A: If you ever, if you ever join us for the Torah service at 9:00am Grab you one of those as you come in and grab your Sidur and grab you a chemash when you come in. That way you can follow along. [00:09:00] Speaker B: Okay, so I'm going to go over. Number one. Your blanks are Ketuvim, K E T U V I m. It's he. It's plural for writings. Okay. And then your next blank is Nach N A C h, and it stands for the Neviim, the prophets, and the Ketuvim, the writings. And your last blank for number one is second Chronicles. So the Jewish order of the books of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures ends in second Chronicles, not Malachi. Number two, your blank is Chumash C H U m a S h, Chumash. And then number three is Targum T a r G u m. And that's. [00:09:50] Speaker A: And then four. You did four? [00:09:51] Speaker B: I went ahead and said four. [00:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:53] Speaker B: Oh. The most widely accepted Targum on the Torah is Targum Ankolos. O n k E L O s. [00:10:02] Speaker A: Unless you're listening to Ashkenaz, then they say unklos. [00:10:06] Speaker B: Okay? O n k E L O s Onkalos. We're gonna have a lot of new words. [00:10:12] Speaker A: So I tried to make it easy where you didn't have to write down the weird words. I gave you the weird words. You write down easy words. But some of them. [00:10:18] Speaker B: There's a few. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Okay, so the Targo, real quick is the reason why we have the Targum. How many of you ever got, how many of you guys have ever read from like the living Bible, the Amplified Bible, the message, that kind of stuff? Right? Okay. So that is the goal of those type of translations is to break the text down to make it really easy for you to connect with it and to understand it. Okay. Even though there's problems with it, the, the, the Targums, that's their goal as well. Because in the first and second centuries, the Jewish people, they knew Aramaic a lot better than they knew Hebrew. Even though it's a very similar language, it can be very confusing. Okay. It's sort of like maybe think about like if, you know, the romantic language is like Italian and Spanish, right? Those, those people can communicate if they speak those languages, but they're, it's, it's, it's really broken, you know what I mean? And so think about it that way. So the, the Targum enclose is the most accepted and it's generally included in a Chumash, okay. In, in one of these books that we're passing around with the Torah and it's supposed to be studied alongside the Torah every day. And actually I have a five volume set of enclose of the Targum that has the Targum, the, the Aramaic text. It's got the Hebrew text and then it's got the English translation of the Aramaic. Okay. And so that helps a lot too, you know, mute somebody. And then, so there's, but there's other Targums such as Targum Jonathan, Chargum, Targum Pseudo Jonathan, Targum Neophiti, Targum Ketuvim, which is the Targum on the writings, not the Torah. But, and I can give you the, the, the handout, the thing that I'm going to give with the full information will tell you a little bit more about each one of these. Okay, so that is the Scriptures, that is the Targums, which is the Aramaic. And now we're going to move on to something that's less familiar probably to most people. It's called the Mishnah. How many of you heard the Mishnah but may not know what it is? Right. So the Mishnah is the foundational compilation of early rabbinic law and the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral tradition, completed in the early 3rd century CE, compiled by Yehuda or Judah Hanasi. So your blank for 5 is Mishnah. M I M I S H N A H. Mishnah. Organizes and preserves the Oral Torah, showing how the commandments of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures are understood and lived out in daily life. Okay, and so basically, do you have that page with the, wherever it is, here it is. [00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:13:26] Speaker A: Okay, so think about this real quick. Thought I had one with some questions. So basically, what does it mean? Think about this way in a, in a time, in a biblical period, right? That's all we know right now of the time when the temple was standing. The, the full Torah was in effect. We had a theocracy where the full penalty of the Torah was in effect too. Living inside the land of Israel with the Jewish people. What did it mean to break Shabbat? How do we know that because the Torah hardly says anything about it, but the punishment is the death penalty. So how do we, Is that just arbitrary? We say, oh, I wasn't breaking the Shabbat, or, oh, he was breaking the Shabbat, and just argue about it? No, it's a legal code and legal system. And the mission is the first step in how to interpret that of what is involved and what it is, how it defines of how the Torah is either broken or fulfilled or lived out. [00:14:27] Speaker B: So an example would be, in our country, we have the constitution. That's our set of laws that our nation is run by. But we have more than just that right. We have to interpret the constitution. You know, how does, how does, how do we apply the constitution to this and this and this? And so that's what the Torah. I mean, it is our Bible and it is God's holy living word, and it nourishes us spiritually. But it is, it is the constitution of this nation that God has chosen. And so they have to. It is their set of laws that they're governed by. And so there's a legal. This is. It's legal code. And so we have to interpret this. [00:15:09] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, exactly. [00:15:12] Speaker B: So we have to interpret these. How the, the, the, the citizens of this nation live these out. [00:15:17] Speaker A: But it's different in the sense that the Torah includes like, like you said, federal, civil, moral, and ethical, all in one, you know, place the heart of. And so, like, you know, it defines Mishnah and other places define what the 39 prohibitions for Shabbat are categories, actually, there's more details. And so, you know, that kind of stuff. And so we have the. The Mishnah is broken down into six divisions. Okay? These are the, these are called sederim, and the six are Zeraim, which deals with agriculture, Moed, which is dealing with festivals, Nashim, women, things like marriage, divorce, family, and so forth. Nezakim, excuse me, which deals with damages. It means damages, Kodashim, dealing with holy things, temple service, offerings, so forth. Taharot, which is purities. And together, these six orders have a total of 63 tractates, or books within them that show how the Torah is applied and in every situation of life. [00:16:33] Speaker B: Okay, couple examples. [00:16:34] Speaker A: Yeah, we can have a couple examples. Here's a 1 tractate of, of the. The Mishnah. Not even a whole order, one track, Tate Zim, which is part of the Kodashim, I believe. Let's see. [00:16:48] Speaker C: So after 63, the word is tractates. [00:16:52] Speaker A: Let me see here. [00:16:53] Speaker B: Yes, tractates. [00:16:57] Speaker C: Yes, [00:17:01] Speaker A: I am on Track I'm seven. I'm sorry, six. Six, six orders. And track after the word Cetera, we have orders as your blank. And then the last there is, which are the tractates. Tractates that you're blank. T, R A, C T A T, E, S. Okay, so there's a lot more, like I said we could say about this, but we're going to have to move on to the Talmud. Okay, The Talmud, everybody's heard. We're on number seven, actually. Now, the Talmud is a vast collection of rabbinic discussions that unpack, analyze and debate the Mishnah. That's your, that's your blank there. M I, S H, N A H. The Talmud is made up of two main components. Number one, the Mishnah, which is what we said, the foundation of these early rabbinic writings and the legal code. And number two, the Gemara, which is later rabbinic discussion and analysis of the Mishnah. I have a. [00:18:16] Speaker C: What's the date range of the town? [00:18:18] Speaker A: Okay, so the Mishnah was compiled roughly 200 CE. And the Talmud, which we're going to discover here. Let me tell this part real quick before I tell you that, because there are actually two talents, okay? There is the Bavli, which is the Babylonian Talmud, and then there is the Yerushalmi Talmud, which is the Jerusalem Talmud. Now, the Jerusalem Talmud is pretty close to the Mishnah, I think is right around 300. Is that right? Yeah, 300 CE. But the Jerusalem, I mean, the Babylonian Talmud, it didn't get finished until about 600 CE. And the reason why is because they, they, they weren't pressured like the Jerusalem community was because they were being pressured by the Christians and all that kind of stuff. And they had, they couldn't basically continue doing what they were doing. And so the Babylonian community had more time to really focus and put this thing together like they wanted it. Now, there's differences between the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud too, in the sense that the Babylonian Talmud has, it's more inclusive, for one. But the Jerusalem Talmud focuses on things that, that are applicable in Israel, whereas Babylonian Talmud, it doesn't apply to them. So they're not really focused on that. Okay, so like specifically like agriculture and temple and things like that. You're going to have more of that kind of stuff in the, the Jerusalem Talmud than you are the Babylonian town. And it's. And they don't cover the same tractates of the Mishnah. A lot of it overlaps, but you're going to have discrepancies. [00:20:02] Speaker C: Yes, quick Question. Is that where you. Some people got the information that they gave me that three years of not eating from a tree is only for the land of Israel? Is that where they got it from? [00:20:17] Speaker B: Well, that's Torah. [00:20:18] Speaker A: That's, that's really just Torah. [00:20:20] Speaker C: How did they. How. How did I know? Because I was applying it here in Georgia. [00:20:23] Speaker A: Because it says, no, you're waiting not [00:20:26] Speaker C: for the land of Israel. [00:20:27] Speaker A: Right. Because it says when you enter the land. [00:20:29] Speaker C: Okay, so it's. [00:20:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really just a Torah commandment. Can I say something real quick about [00:20:38] Speaker C: the Constitution and viewing it from that perspective? [00:20:42] Speaker B: People can't hear. [00:20:43] Speaker C: Oh, I can't hear. Sorry. [00:20:46] Speaker D: Just about the Constitution and viewing it from that perspective, Looking at the Mishnah or the Talmud, we could also apply this as. Looking at it as like Supreme Court cases. [00:20:58] Speaker A: Right. [00:20:59] Speaker D: But not only is this giving you the ruling of the Supreme Court case, it's giving you the majority and dissenting opinions of the Supreme Court case. So when you just go in and start reading, you may be reading a dissenting opinion of a Supreme Court case. And how, you know, like, if you have no idea what you're doing, and that's usually where the issues lie with [00:21:18] Speaker A: a lot of things. [00:21:19] Speaker D: Where the confusion or the confusion lies. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Very good question. Do you all leverage focus time in terms of, you know, understanding, you know, those categories of misfote that can be observed today? You know, I, I can't really speak to that, but I know his. We're going to be talking about his Mishnah Barua here in a little bit. Okay. Yeah. Okay, thank you. So see, here we are on number eight. And the blank for your. That one is Jerusalem, if you haven't filled that in already. [00:22:00] Speaker B: So the synagogue has the loan. [00:22:04] Speaker A: On loan from Mr. Lance. Here's, here's a copy of that. And do we pass around the layout? [00:22:09] Speaker B: No, no. [00:22:10] Speaker A: Where is that? Here? Okay, right here. Let me just show you this real quick. Sorry. This. This is an image of a. Of the first page of the. No, it's not. Anyway, a typical page. I thought it was the first one, but it was a typical page of the Talmud. On this side is an English version of the layout, but not the text. It actually has English text explaining about these different sections. Okay. Which is really cool. And so you can check that out. I'm going to pass that around. But basically something which is really cool, actually, that this layout is now standard format for the Talmud and that's how they're printed. But this layout was developed by A Christian printer. When Pope. One of the popes. Pope Leon or something. I can't remember what his name. Leo. He. He actually gave permission for the Jews to print. Print the Talmud. [00:23:07] Speaker B: Leo the 10th. [00:23:07] Speaker A: Leo the 10th. There we go. [00:23:09] Speaker B: 1520. [00:23:09] Speaker A: In 1520, he gave permission for the. Because they. They. Talmud had been banned and they had burned the Talmud and all that kind of stuff. And so he gave permission for them to reprint it. And this is the. The format that this Christian printer remember, manual, little lead letters and everything that he was coming up with to create all this stuff. This is the format he did to help keep everything together. Is that what. No, it's just how they come to. And you'll see on different pages, they'll actually come together. So you have the middle text, which begins with the Mishnah, and then it has the Gemara, which follows it, the commentary on the Mishnah. And then on the outside edges, we have Rashi's commentary. That's closest to the fold of the paper, the. The spine. Then you have Tosafot, which is his sort of commentators. And then you have everybody else that sort of fits in wherever they can find a place. Oh, no. Nope. Because it doesn't ever. It. It's not. It's not always that way. It's A lot of times it's equal. It looks like brackets or something. You know, I think it also. [00:24:20] Speaker C: People can hear what. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Oh, she. She thought the layout was the L meaning Pope Leo. And. And so that doesn't apply to that. Okay. And then. Thank you. [00:24:32] Speaker B: So. So this is a Babylonian Talmud. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Yes. And go ahead. [00:24:36] Speaker B: And this part of it is in here. Over there. And then the rest of it is in the foyer. Because it's a lot of volumes. [00:24:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:47] Speaker B: And it looks really nice. [00:24:49] Speaker A: The English version of the art scroll, I think. [00:24:59] Speaker B: Shockenstein. [00:25:00] Speaker A: I never can remember how. What the word is, the family name is 73 volumes. So if somebody says, well, I've read the Talmud and you like. [00:25:13] Speaker B: So if you do, it's called Daf Yomi. A page a day. How long does it take? [00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah, seven and a half year cycle. [00:25:21] Speaker B: Okay. Just one page a day. [00:25:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And. And you really study that page and not just read through it quickly, you know what I mean? Because you have to absorb the information. So here's another version that Rabbi Steinsaltz, a blessed memory. He. He. The yellow version, it was his original that he came out with. And I have several versions. I have several issues. I mean, volumes of that. But he never finished it. This. This before he passed away. Well, he, he actually, even he had to quit before he. While he was still alive. And he combined with Corn publishers and they came out with his. His translation and commentary in this, the illustrated Talmud. And this is his. And it's really cool because he actually puts the Aramaic into, like, modern Hebrew. And he does. He has unique English translation, and then it's illustrated, has all kinds of pictures to help show you what they're talking about and all that kind of stuff. You want to check that out? Okay, so we're moving on to the next category. We're running out of time. Yes, it's Jerusalem. Yes. Number nine. This is the next category. Next category is Halaka. So Halakhic literature is the body of jugal juice, Jewish legal writings that translate the teachings of the Tanakh and rabbinic tradition into practical guidance for daily life. Two popular works of halaka are, number one, the Mishna Torah. This is different from the Mishnah, but m I s h N e h, the Mishnah Torah. And it's e h, not a H. Mishnah Torah, legal code written by Maimonides or the Rambam Rambam in the 12th century. It was groundbreaking in its organization and scope. As a matter of fact, it sort of had a fiasco when it was first introduced. And they called him a heretic and said, you know, basically you think you're the big shot trying to outdo, you know, whatever. And at first it got a lot of pushback. And then people started reading it. They're like, I think he's got a point. And so it became. It's become like a foundational text. It's like one of the most widely read texts in Judaism and studied daily by most people. Okay. And then the second one is called the Shulchan Aruch, which literally means the set table. And we have a condensed version called the Kitsura Shulkan Aruk. And you can look at that. And it is the most widely accepted code of Jewish law compiled in the 16th century by Rav Yosef Karo. Okay. Other holochic literature includes Tour, which is a 14th century comprehensive code by Yaakov bin Asher. And we have Shulkan Aru Karav, which is the Shulchan Aruk, sort of recompiled, redone, sort of reorganized, re with commentary and stuff like that by the Chabad founder Schneer Zalman of Leidi, who's also called the Altar Rebbe, his version of that. And then we have what one of the gentlemen online mentioned earlier, the Shulkan Aruk sort ofana of, of the. Which is the Mishnah Barura. It's the work of Halacha by Rabbi Israel Mayor Kagan, also known as the Kovitz Kaim. It's a commentary on Orach Chaim, the first section of the Shulchan Arukh, which deals with the laws of prayer, synagogue, Shabbat and holy, holy days, summarizing the opinions of the post medieval rabbinic authority authorities. So now I've given you like six or eight, but there is that. You can really get in the weeds when you start going down halakhic avenues, because that's. For centuries that's what everybody was focused on. Okay. And so there's tons of different works that are involved in that. Okay, number 10, and I didn't give you a blank for that. I'm sorry. But midrash is a genre of Jewish literature that interprets and elaborates upon biblical texts. There are two categories of midrash, halakic or legal. And that's should have been your blank. Legal midrash and agadic or homiletic Midrash. [00:29:59] Speaker B: Sorry, got it. Yeah, a few examples. Go ahead. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Okay, so here's, here's a couple examples. One, Midrashaba is one of the most famous and widely known studied. And I, I have this, and it's down here, there's 10 volumes of that, and it goes through the Torah, basically. And like the first two, maybe three volumes is on Genesis. I mean, it's huge. And it's, it's just got a ton of stuff. It's got like all kinds of stories that you've maybe heard people talk about that aren't actually in the Bible. But you think, well, how did this happen? You know, you read the text and it's like, well, how. I wonder how that took place or whatever. It's most likely found in something like this midrash. Okay. And it talks a lot about that stuff. [00:30:47] Speaker B: And there's Midrash on the whole Tanakh. [00:30:50] Speaker A: Right, right. So if you want to look at this, this midrash here, this is the Machilta, the, the Rabbi Shimon Baruchai, which is the Midrash on. I forget what it covers. Let me see. It's on. The book of Exodus only. Okay, Then you have the Sifra, which is the midrash on the book of Leviticus. And from the school of Rabbi Akiva, you have Sifre Bamibar, of course, on the Book of Numbers, from the school of Rabbi Ishmael, you have Sifre Zuta which is the third century midrash on the Book of Numbers. It wasn't published until 1917. Based on quotations from other works of Midrash that had fragments of this one work that they piece back together. Then you have Sifre Devarim, a midrash on Deuteronomy, primarily from the school of Rabbi Akiva. So you have. This is just a small sampling too. You have tons of stuff like this. You have the Midrash Hagadol that I don't even have listed in here, I don't think, which is another complete set of Midrash. Okay, those are halakhic Midrash, those that I should. Yeah, I should have waited on. That's okay. And then Agodic Midrashaba is agodic. And what I mean by halakhic and agodic, so in your notes it says legal and homiletic. Basically legal means. These are the stories behind how we got here in our interpretations of this Agodic is this is how we can understand this better or relate to this better or, or inspire us for this. Think about it that way, maybe. Okay, the egotic includes things like Midrashaba, like I said, Ayn Yaakov, which is this. There's seven volume set that's right there. This is one, one of the volumes that I was blessed with by somebody. Midrash Tanhuma, which I have. It's like seven or eight volumes. It's another commentary, basically a commentary on the Torah, Perke the Rebeliezer, which has some really cool messianic insights into it. Seder Olamzuda. This is a 9th century chronicle detailing the events of from Adam through the Talmudic period. Seder Alam Raba, 2nd century, similar type thing up to Alexander the Great. Yakut Shamoni, medieval compilation of Midrashima arranged according to the verses of the Hebrew Bible. Midrash Agada and then Pasekto Rabati and then you're. Anybody heard of the Book of Jasher? Okay, so the Book of Jasher that is printed now is probably not the original Jasher, but it was probably somewhat similar. Okay. And it's called, in Hebrew, it's called Sefer Hayashara, which means the Book of the Upright. And so, but it's similar. It goes through. It's basically like you're reading Genesis and it just fills in a lot of gaps and details and stuff like that. Okay, so I'm trying to really push my time here so we can have a few minutes for Question answer number 11. We're moving to apocryphal Books come primarily from the Second Temple Temple period between the close of the Tanakh and the rise of Rabbinic Judaism. Some were preserved in certain Jewish and Christian traditions. And so the word pseudepigraphal means words. Excuse me, works that are writings, works that are attributed. Is your blank attributed to ancient biblical figures, but composed later. So you. Like maybe a classic example would be the Book of Enoch. Okay. And you have first Enoch and second Enoch and all that kind of stuff, but 95 chance Enoch didn't write that, but yet it's attributed to it. Okay. You have other books like that as well. And so you have a lot of pseudepigraphal new Christian writings as well, you know, Clement and different things. There's Tobias. Yeah, Tobias. And you have different ones. Some of them are maybe legit, but some of them are not. But it doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad or they're incorrect, but we need to realize what they are in the proper context. Does that make sense? And so your first blank on 11 is attributed to ancient biblical figures, but composed later. Many of these texts are also considered apocalyptic literature. Meaning doesn't mean they're going to explode like most of us may think. It means they use visions. That's your blank symbolism. Angels, heavenly journeys and revelations about the end of the age, to expl four themes such as judgment, redemption, suffering, and the kingdom of God. Okay, this is like revelation, right? This is the big thing that's. It's a. It's the Apocalypse of John. That's another name for it. You have lots of different things in apocalyptic literature such as this. Okay, now we're moving quickly to Jewish liturgy, which you guys hopefully are familiar with a little bit. It is composed of prayers, poems and ritual texts recited in daily worship or at specific occasions. The most commonly used are number one, the Sidur, which is right here. So we use this. You know, if you have. If you've only seen the ones that we use in our nine o' clock service, it's a little small thing, right? It's not that thick and everything, but this is like a full Siddur, so that gives you an idea of what that is. This covers prayers for almost anything. Okay. It's not going to be for your full holidays and stuff like that, but most everything in life here is what you. You will have. This is the Corin Shalom, Shalom Sedur. [00:37:08] Speaker B: And we have those in the foyer as well. [00:37:10] Speaker A: Right. So you can use those at any point out there. And so Number one is the cedar, the Jewish prayer book. Number two is the Haggadah. You guys are probably familiar with that one, right? It's used for what? Passover Seder. That's your blank. It's used. It's the text used as the basis of the Passover Seder. Here's one that you may have used but not known the name of it. Number three is a moxur. Okay. A moxor. A moxor. It's a prayer book designed for a specific holiday such as Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur or Sukkot. So if you come for Sukkot, come for Rosh Hashanah, come for Yom Kippur. Did I say Yom Kippur? Anyway, that, that you'll have a separate book, a separate prayer book that will you. We will use just for that day. And the one for Yom Kippur, just that one 25 hour period is almost as thick as this. And it's only used one day a year. Okay. Because what else do you have to do? Right? Okay, number 13. We're moving to a different category. Muser Musar. Excuse me, I've been listening to many Ashkenazi Musser. Okay. Musar is a category of Jewish literature that provides virtue based instruction for moral and spiritual character development. Character is your blank. Now there's ancient Musar, which Sabrina is going to show you some of these. This is the foundation of Musar. But then there's modern Musar, who's read the book Everyday Holiness. It's excellent book. I highly, highly recommend it. If you don't get anything about. About what I'm talking today, except for that one thing. Read that book. Okay. But here we have books like Path of the Just. Actually we have two versions of that. Grab that black one as well. This is the English is Path of Just. The Hebrew is. Yeah, there you go. And it is. It is a foundational text. That is really good. The men's group here at Shalom Macon, our Torah on tap, we spent two years on it. Okay. Working through this book and it's excellent. And then we have the duties of the heart or Chovot, Halevavot. Okay, the duties of the heart. And let me tell you a little bit about those real quick. The, the Musar movement first of all was bolstered by the founding. The founder of Musar. Sorry. In the 19th century Lithuania, which encouraged organized study Musar and produced its own literature. I've already forgotten his name. Salanter Israel Cilantro. Is like the person who really got Musar going. Okay. And a few of the works in number 14, Duties of the Heart. That's the English heart is your blank, written by Bahia Ibn Kude. And Ibn is like a Spanish, Hebrew or maybe Ladino, I'm not sure version of Ben A Son, son of. Okay. It's an 11th century treatise that details 10 principles of spiritual life, focusing on obligations performed with the heart, such as the unity of God, devotion of God to God and repentance. The book is divided into 10 gates or treatises, and it includes the popular work Shahr Habitat Shaar Habitachon, which is the gate of trust, which many of us have been studying individually. It's a. It's a standalone book as it can be getting God as well. Then you have Tomer Devorah is another example. The palm tree of Devorah, because she judged under the palm tree. And this is actually introduced to me last year by Derek. I'd never heard of it before and Derek introduced it to me, gave me a copy and been enjoying it. It was a little struggle to get into it, but once I get got past knowing what I was doing, it was enjoyable. And then it was by the 16th century, kabbalistic and ethical. It was a 16th century kabbalistic and ethical treatise by Rabbi Moshe Cordova with a folk. Thank you Cordovaro, with a focus on the concept of imitating. That's your blank. Imitating God. Then you have like Heshbon Hanefesh, which is the accounting of the soul. Then you have. Which is weird. You can read about that anyway, which we already talked about. Path of the upright, number 15. Moving to a different genre, Hasidut, or you'll hear it called Hasidis. Quite a bit from the Ashkenazi. It's a movement and body of Jewish teaching founded by the Baal Shem Tov in the 18th century Europe that emphasizes joy, devotion. That joy is your blank spiritual awareness and personal connection with God through the lens of Torah, rabbinic tradition and Kabbalah. Let me just stop for just a second. BAAL Shem Tov did something amazing. He what he did was similar to what Yeshua did in his day and age. Because what Yeshua did was, hey, you guys all know all the right things to do. Now it's time to do them, okay? And live it. Don't just talk about it. Don't just tell the other people to do it. Let's do it, okay? And the Boston Tov did something similar. He said, you guys spent all your Time studying. And you're always involved in legal dispute and arguments and how to do this, how to this, and what's the legal way of this? And it was exclusive to the mentally elite. Okay. The scholars. That's the way it was. And the BAAL Shem Tov comes along and he says, he starts grabbing these just simple people, sort of like Yeshua grabbing the fishermen. Right? And he says, we're going to hold on to Hashem. We're going to love him. We're going to dance, we're going to sing, we're going to have joy. We're going to study. You know, we're not going to. We're not going to be ignorant, but our focus is going to be living this out. Okay, so that's what he brought to the equation. [00:44:09] Speaker B: There's a comment or question, Suzanne. [00:44:15] Speaker C: It shows up in the movie that recently came out. [00:44:18] Speaker A: Oh, really? What. What movie? [00:44:28] Speaker B: Just say it out out loud for the people online. Well, he'll have to say it. [00:44:34] Speaker A: Okay. Huh? Oh, no, no, He's Christian. He's Christian. Okay. She's. So she's what, [00:44:54] Speaker B: Wakefield? [00:44:56] Speaker C: No, no. [00:44:59] Speaker B: Or is it the one that's the Great Awakening? [00:45:01] Speaker A: Great Awakening is the. [00:45:04] Speaker B: Is the movie. [00:45:07] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I can't. I can think of either. But anyway, what she's saying is basically this. This whole principle of Heshvan Hanefesh, the book Accounting the Soul, that's based on. It's modeled after. Not based on, modeled after. Benjamin Franklin's program of systematic refinement of 13 distinct character. Character traits, is portrayed in this movie to show that he, you know, that's sort of the path that he was taking. So that's interesting. Okay. 16. The foundational text of Hasidis of the Hasidic sect known as Chabad. It's one of the ones we're more familiar with, is known as the Tanya. T A N Y, I, which means I'm. Excuse. T A N Y A. Thank you. [00:45:58] Speaker B: Like the name Tanya. [00:45:59] Speaker A: Right? And that word Tanya, means it was taught. And that's how the book begins. It is written by Rabbi Schnurzalman of Le, Also called the Altar Rebbe, which means old Rebbe, the old Rabbi. It explores the nature of the soul, the inner spiritual struggle of a believer, and the path towards serving God with awareness, joy, and devotion. It's amazing. I love that text. I've been studying it off and on for years. But you have to have a framework and this. [00:46:30] Speaker B: And we don't have a copy of the Tanya to show you. [00:46:32] Speaker A: I should have Brought mine. But anyway, it's okay. But it's about that thick and it's got 52 different. I think it is 52 different, basically individual sections in it. Okay, this brings me to our next section, the one everybody's probably been hanging on the edge of their seat to get to. And this is Kabbalah. We're ending the class. Goodbye. No. Okay, so what's that? Yeah. Signing off. Okay, so first of all, let me just. I'll read this note and give you the blanks and stuff. Then we're going to talk about it for just a moment. Kabbalah, meaning receiving or receive, is the mystical and interpretive stream within Judaism that explores the hidden. That's your blank and spiritual dimensions of God, creation, the soul and the universe. While Kabbalah may carry with it the stigma of witchcraft or magic, labeled as such by uninformed individuals, it simply is a theological and philosophical approach to understanding deeper spiritual realities within the framework of Jewish faith and scripture. Drawing from the Tanakh, what do we say the Tanakh was? Hebrew scriptures and Rabbinic tradition. Kabbalah uses symbolism, metaphysical concepts to explore topics such as God's attributes, structure of creation, the relationship between the eternal God and the finite world. Basically the finite and the infinite. How in the world did those merge and come together? Two popular mystical texts that you may have heard of are the Sefer Yatsira. It's the book of Formation. Formation, the earliest extant Jewish mystical work describing how God used the Hebrew Aleph bait. And US Alphabet. Yeah, either one. Alphabet, Alphabet and numbers. That's your second blank to create the world. And the second one is the Zohar, a canonical text of Kabbalah that emerged in the 13th century Spain, traditionally attributed to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai from the second century. But it's most likely a pseudepigraphal work as well. Doesn't necessarily discount it. Die hard Kabbalist. They will say it was Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, but most scholars will say it is by. What's his name? [00:49:09] Speaker B: Starts with a P. No. [00:49:11] Speaker A: Leon. [00:49:13] Speaker B: Leon. Leon. [00:49:14] Speaker A: Leon Deleon de Leon. I forget his name. Moshe. Moshe de Leon. That's his name. From. From Spain. And anyway. And so. But it's. It's. First of all, it's. It's a very complicated word. Would you throw your third grader into a calculus class? No. Okay. Or a college level psychiatry class or psychology class? I should say. Okay. Now does that mean the psychology class is just garbage or evil or whatever? No, it just means that they don't have the framework to understand it. So Kabbalah was written in a way that you have to have. It's. It said you weren't even supposed to even start learning Kabbalah until, first of all, you had mastered Torah. Second of all, you had mastered Mishnah. Third, you had mastered Talmud. And then you're at least 40 years old and married. Okay. So that's sort of the prerequisite. Now things have changed. The tables are turning, and Derek has a lot to say on that, which I'll let you say another time. We're running out of time, but basically, the sages say time is of the essence, and we have to help this generation understand that we're reaching the culmination of days, and they need to know what to do. Okay. And how to live. And there's an urgency to it. Sort of like Yeshua's words. Right. There's an urgency that he. He needed to tell and we need to proclaim. And this Kabbalistic understanding of basically how. How can we really, really, really connect with Hashem, you know, and not just go through the motions? And that's what this is all about. And so lot of bad press, but it's. It's. It's because of people that jump into Kabbalah that don't have a foundation. Okay. And then they get everything messed up. Right. Number 18, winding down here last. [00:51:24] Speaker B: Oh, do you want to point this? [00:51:25] Speaker A: Okay, real quick. So here's. I'm sorry, here is one text of a Hasidic text called Transforming the Inner Self. And it is part. It may be actually part of the. The Tanya, but it's standalone. But it says a Hasidic discourse by S. H. Schneer Zalman of Leedy. And so you can check that out at some point. And we don't have any Kabbalistic texts. Yeah, well, it's actually categorized as philosophy, I believe. But we'll. We'll say it's a. It's a. It's a bridge. It'll probably fall in between these. So the Bahir. [00:52:09] Speaker B: I thought we had a Kabbalah. Oh, well, go ahead. [00:52:12] Speaker A: I didn't do that because. [00:52:13] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:52:14] Speaker A: Anyway. Okay. Jewish number 18. Jewish philosophy is the branch of Jewish thought that explores theological, ethical, and existential questions and wrestles with topics such as the nature of God, free will, suffering, morality, revelation, the purpose of life. So you can see there's some overlap there. Right. But coming at it from a little different angle, and the relationship between free faith and reason. That's your blank faith. Two popular examples of Jewish philosophical works are the. The Guide for the Perplexed by Maimonides. And I almost brought my copy of that, but I didn't. A 12th century philosophical masterwork written as, as a letter to a student demonstrating the compatibility of Judaism and philosophy, how those can, can coexist. So philosophy is your blank there. And the last. Yeah, so the Bahir is probably going to be more on the mystical side of the Kabbalistic side. So you can take a look at this and then the Kazuri Khusari. Sorry, Khusari is the 12th century philosophical and apologetic dialogue between a rabbi and a pagan king. That's your blank. Pagan king about the truth and superiority of Judaism. Okay. So people like Maimonides and, and others, they had to compete with, like the Pope, you know, coming down on why Judaism's so evil and so bad and all that kind of stuff, and, and even the secular government and just imposing all this stuff. And they said, let's, let's create some logical, reasonable philosophical arguments that we can compete basically and show validity here. So that's how these texts sort of came into being. Okay, that wraps up all of our stuff. We're going to take some questions now.