The Circumcision of The Messiah

As Moses described the final redemption to come, he told Israel that God will circumcise their hearts. He said, “God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live” (Deuteronomy 30:6).

The metaphoric circumcision of the heart will enable us to completely fulfill the commandment of loving God. It will grant us life—even eternal life.

In the Scriptures, a circumcised heart refers to having a repentant heart, suppliant to the will of God. For example, in Deuteronomy 10:16, Moses commanded the people, “Circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.”

The Prophet Jeremiah tells Israel to repent from evil deeds, saying, “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD and remove the foreskins of your heart” (Jeremiah 4:4). The Apostle Paul contrasts a circumcised proselyte who does not keep the commandments against an uncircumcised Gentile who does keep the commandments. He says that the latter demonstrates a circumcision “which is of the heart, by the Spirit” (Romans 2:29).
Jewish eschatology teaches that when Messiah comes, God will circumcise our hearts by removing the evil inclination. Messiah is the circumciser of hearts. Nachmanides explains as follows:

From creation, man has had the free choice to do righteousness or evil according to his will … In the Messianic Era, man’s natural inclination will be to choose the good, and the heart will not lust for that which is not appropriate. He will not have any desire for the forbidden whatsoever. And this is what is meant by the “circumcision” spoken of here, for lust (and material desires) are like foreskin for the heart. The circumcision of the heart is that the heart shall not lust [after the forbidden] and shall not desire [the forbidden]. At that time, human beings will return to the spiritual state they possessed before the sin of Adam when he would by nature do that which is proper to do …

This is what the scripture means in Jeremiah 31:33, “… I will put My Torah within them and on their heart I will write it.” This refers to the abolition of the evil inclination and the hearts doing by nature that which is proper to do … similarly, Ezekiel states, “I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). The “new heart” refers to its new nature … (Nachmanides on Deuteronomy 30:6)

The prophecy from Ezekiel echoes the prophecies in Deuteronomy 30:1-6. Ezekiel describes how God will gather Israel together from the nations, purify them, circumcise their hearts, and enable them to keep the Torah:

For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land …I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers. (Ezekiel 36:24-28)

The result of this circumcision of heart is obedience to God. Moses says that when God finally circumcises the heart of His people, they will “again obey the LORD, and observe all His commandments” (Deuteronomy 30:8). In other words, God is going to enable us to keep His Torah. He is going to set us free from sin and cause us to walk in righteousness. Keeping Torah is one of the promises of the Messianic Age.

Paul explains that we who have become partakers of Messiah have already begun to enter the new covenant and the circumcision of the heart. He calls it the “circumcision of Messiah” when he says, “In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Messiah” (Colossians 2:11).

Stop Gossiping

The Power of Thought and Speech

One of the prohibited forms of behavior is gossip.

לֹא תֵלֵךְ רָכִיל בְּעַמֶּיךָ וגו’: (ויקרא יט:טז)
[G‑d instructed Moses to tell the Jewish people,] “You must not go around as a gossipmonger.” Leviticus 19:16

According to the Talmud, gossip “kills” three people: the speaker, the listener, and the object of the gossip. That the speaker and listener deserve to be punished is understandable, but why should the person about whom they are gossiping suffer?

The answer is that speaking about another person’s shortcomings does more than just belittle him. Words have the power to bring latent energy into actuality. When we speak about a person’s negative traits, it activates them and reinforces them. As a result, his behavior takes a turn for the worse and he thus incurs punishment.

Conversely, when we speak about the good traits of another person, we reveal and reinforce those traits. We can thus be a positive or negative influence on people; the choice is ours.

It is not only prohibited to speak derogatorily about someone; it is also prohibited to think about them derogatorily. In some ways, thinking negatively about someone is more serious than speaking negatively about them.

Polygamy and the Bible

1st published on 8th July 2012 on Facebook.

Christians are fond of defining Biblical Marriage as one man, one woman, bonded for life, sexually exclusive, and celibate before marriage. The problem is, that’s not in the Bible. In order to find that model of marriage, we will have to look beyond the bible.

Taking the Bible as a whole, there are far more references to polygamy — and far more approval from Yahweh himself for the institution — than for monogamous marriage.

If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: (Deuteronomy 21:15-16)

Earlier in the same chapter, rules were spelt out for taking captive slaves and adding them to your harem of wives.

And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David. (2 Samuel 5:13)

David, the direct ancestor of Yeshua, had six wives and many concubines. Concubines, by virtue of NOT being wives, are pretty solid evidence that non-married sex wasn’t an especially bad thing in the Old Testament.
Speaking of non-married sex, King Solomon, the wisest man in the history of the universe, had 300 concubines. Think about how many times you had sex last year. Solomon probably had beaten you to it before he even got to the first of his 700 wives.

Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, didn’t do quite so well. He only had 18 wives and 60 concubines. (2 Chronicles 11:21) Esau had three wives. At first, he married two Caananite women, but his parents were mad at him — not for having two wives, but because they were foreigners. So he found himself a good Jewish girl and took her for his own.

Christians love this passage: `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh‘ ? 6. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matthew 19: 5-6). It proves Yeshua advocated one man, one woman, with no divorce, right?

Well… not exactly. For some reason, they forget the rest of the passage. 8. Yeshua replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” Yeshua goes on to prohibit divorce for just any cause, but NOT multiple wives.

More importantly, there is not a single passage to be found in the New Testament where Yeshua condemns, outlaws, or otherwise prohibits polygamy. Really! There isn’t a single one. Read it for yourself and see. One would think that if it was important for his followers to abandon the marital traditions of hundreds of years, and more importantly, of his own forbears — those men who were individually chosen by Yahweh – he might have taken a moment to mention it.

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The Gentle Way to Educate

וַיְדַבֵּר ה’ אֶל מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר: דַּבֵּר אֶל אַהֲרֹן וגו’: (ויקרא כא:טז–יז)

G‑d spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron.” Leviticus 21:16-17

The Torah mainly uses two Hebrew words for “speaking.” The first (dibur) is reserved for “hard speech,” the straightforward, accurate delivery of the message. The second (amirah) is “soft speech,” i.e., tailoring the message to its intended recipient in order to ensure that it is indeed received and clearly understood.

The first part of this section of the Torah, which contains the laws regarding the priests’ duty to educate their children in the responsibilities of the priesthood, is couched exclusively in “soft speech.” It is only when G‑d returns to the other laws concerning the priests that He once again uses “hard speech.”

This teaches us that we must educate primarily with “soft speech.” In order to be effective, educators must relate fully to their students and tailor their style of delivery accordingly.

G‑d’s imperative regarding how the priests educate their youth applies to us all. Whenever we see in someone a behavior or attitude that is in need of inspiration or correction, we are immediately cast by Divine providence in the role of educator. In all such cases, we must remember G‑d’s instruction to make exclusive use of “soft speech.”1

Footnotes

Likutei Sichot, vol. 27, pp. 158–159; Hitva’aduyot 5742, vol. 3, pp. 1421–1424.

Culled from http://www.chabad,org