Tuesday 7 April 2015

Behold the Nail, Behold the Hand - Exodus 3:14-15.... "This is my name to remain hidden."

This is very interesting ... Do you speak Aramaic ? Hebrew ?
In Exodus 3:15 God tells Moses that his Name is " יְהֹוָה " ...

The Hebrew letters "Yud-heh-vav-heh"

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל משֶׁה אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה וַיֹּאמֶר כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם: (Exodus 3:14)

3:14. God said to Moses, "Ehyeh asher ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה) [I will be what I will be]," and He said, "So shall (אֶהְיֶה) you say to the children of Israel, 'Ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה)[I will be] has sent me to you.'"

וַיֹּאמֶר עוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֶל משֶׁה כֹּה תֹאמַר אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם זֶה שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר דֹּר: (Exodus 3:15)

3:15 And God said further to Moses, "So shall you say to the children of Israel, 'The LORD (יְהֹוָה) God (אֱלֹהֵי) of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, and this is how I should be mentioned in every generation.

Exodus 3:14 is usually Translated as "... God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM (אֶהְיֶה) : and he said, Thus shalt (אֶהְיֶה) thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM (אֶהְיֶה) hath sent me unto you."

But we don't actually see the letters "yud-heh-vav-heh" (YHWH) until Exodus 3:15, Where it says "Lord God" .... the word "LORD" is spelled "yud-heh-vav-heh" and this is the sacred NAME that we are to use. The Holy Name in Hebrew letters is spelled yud - heh - vav - heh and looks like this :(read from right to left)











But How is this word spoken in Hebrew ? No one knows because it has not been spoken for 1,940 years.

"As an expression of the infinite greatness and majesty of God, it was held to be unpronounceable and hence was replaced during the reading of sacred Scripture by means of the use of an alternate name: 'Adonai,' which means 'Lord.'", However "until almost the year 200 B.C., the divine name was pronounced every morning in the temple in the priestly blessing: 'The Lord bless and keep you: The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you'" (Numbers 6:24-26)

And it would appear that toward the end of the period of the second temple -- 70 A.D. -- the high priest now only pronounced the word in a whisper. This was explained in a childhood memory of Rabbi Tarphon (1st-2nd centuries), who recalls that even straining to hear, he could not hear the name.

The biblical scholar also noted that the formula of Exodus -- "This is my name forever" (Exodus 3:15) -- through a play of words in Hebrew is interpreted by the Talmud of Jerusalem as "This is my name to remain hidden."

Now, this is where things get interesting .... YHWH , the Tetragrammaton is composed of :


Yod

-Yod or yud was anciently portrayed as a symbol of a hand [yad in Hebrew]. This is the entire hand, or closed hand [in contrast with the letter kaf, which comes from the pictograph of the palm of the hand]. The closed hand denotes power and, figuratively, ownership.
-Yod is masculine. In the sacred name Yahweh, it is representative of the Father.
-Yod is the seminal letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It cannot be divided into component parts, like other letters can. It signifies the oneness of Elohim.
-The yod is the smallest [and most humble] letter. From it, the other letters originate. It is symbolic of creation.

Hey

-The letter hey is feminine, and represents femininity and gentleness. The first hey in the Name is representative of the Mother / Holy Spirit / Eloah.
-Hey means ‘behold’, ‘to show’ or ‘to reveal’.

Vav

-Vav is also masculine in gender.
-Vav signifies a nail, peg, or hook. It also conveys the meaning of being nailed or bound together.
-The numerical value of vav is 6.

They are pronounced, in Hebrew, "Yod Hey Vav Hey," when you read them in the Hebrew manner from right to left.

The four letters in God's name in Hebrew have the following meanings:

Hey = Behold

Vav = Nail

Yod = Closed Hand

When read in English from left to right, it says:

"BEHOLD THE NAIL, BEHOLD THE HAND!" Or, "Behold the nailed hand."

See Ancient Hebrew Letter Meanings : http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/2_alphabet.html


Did Moses hear correctly ? Did the Burning Bush, the Light that burned and was not extinguished say, Look, Behold the nail, Behold the hand ? It is interesting that Y'shuah bar Yosef says the same thing to his brother Yehuda T'oma (Doubting Thomas, The Twin) 1333 years later..... 

We are that same Twin sitting here, doubting again.... And the Light in the darkness says, Behold the nail, Behold the hand. This is the name now revealed.


http://communio.stblogs.org/2008/11/why-the-tetragrammaton-yhwh-is.html

God is immanent in all things - Baal Shem Tov

“All that I have achieved,” the Baal Shem Tov once remarked, “I have achieved not through study, but through prayer”. Prayer, however, is not merely petitioning God to grant a request, nor even necessarily speaking to God, but rather (“cleaving”, dvekut)— the glorious feeling of ’Oneness with God Almighty’, the state of the soul wherein a man or woman gives up their consciousness of separate existence, and join their own selves to the Eternal Being of God Supreme. Such a state produces indescribable bliss, which is the foremost fruit of the true worship of God.


All matter is a manifestation of God - Since God is immanent in all things, all things must possess something good in which God manifests Himself as the source of good. For this reason, the Besht taught, every man must be considered good, and his sins must be explained, not condemned. One of his favorite sayings was that no man has sunk too low to be able to raise himself to God. Naturally, then, it was his chief endeavor to convince sinners that God stood as near to them as to the righteous, and that their misdeeds were chiefly the consequences of their folly. 

Whoever does not believe that God resides in all things, but separates God and them in his thoughts, has not the right conception of God. It is equally fallacious to think of a creation in time: creation, that is, God’s activity, has no end. God is ever active in the changes of nature: in fact, it is in these changes that God’s continuous creativeness consists.

The foundation-stone of Hasidism as laid by Besht is a strongly marked panentheistic conception of God. He declared the whole universe, mind and matter, to be a manifestation of the Divine Being; that this manifestation is not an emanation from God, as is the conception of the Kabbalah by Mitnagdim, for nothing can be separated from God: all things are rather forms in which God reveals Himself.

Since every act in life is a manifestation of God, and must perforce be divine, it is man’s duty so to live that the things called “earthly” may also become noble and pure, that is, divine