Jesus’ Hebrew name is “Yeshua” and is pronounced “Yei-shu-ah.”
She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Yeshua, [which means ‘Adonai saves,’] because he will save his people from their sins. Mattityahu (Mat) 1:21 CJB
Yeshua means “salvation.”
So in other words, Matthew 1:21 states,
You shall call His name salvation [Yeshua], for He will save [yoshia] His people from their sins.
“Jesus” is an English transliteration of a Greek transliteration of His Hebrew name, Yeshua.
rabbi = “teacher;” literally “my great one” or “my honorable sir”
While today this is usually reserved as a title for someone who has received official rabbinic ordination, in the Master’s time it simply referred to someone who was a respected teacher of the Scriptures.
The job of a rabbi was to teach and interpret the Torah. The job of a disciple was to learn the rabbi’s teachings. This was a common mode of learning in the Jewish community far before Jesus’ human lifetime.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:1-2, 14
What does it mean that the “Word became flesh?”
“Word” was a Hewish term for “Torah.”
Deal generously with Your servant so that I might live; then I will keep Your word. Open my eyes so that I may contemplate wonderful things from Your instruction. Psalms 119:17-18
The Word, the Torah, became alive in the person of Messiah Yeshua.
The generation of Jewish believers in Yeshua following the death of the apostles called Yeshua “The Torah.”
The entire discourse on the Sermon on the Mount centers on proper interpretation of the Torah.
When He saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. Then He began to teach them, saying: Matthew 5:1-2
This verse alludes to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Except in this case, He wasn’t merely reading Torah as did Moses, but the Rabbi correctly interpreted Torah and penetrated the hearts when He did. He wasn’t trying to do anything else but to exemplify Torah for the people in the way He lived here on earth. Now because of this obedience, the Torah now dwells inside of all of us.
Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. Matthew 5:17
He did not come to abolish it but to keep it. To think He said that He did not come to abolish it but to die and be resurrected in order to abolish it is crazy.
He came to define the way in which the Torah is applied, how Torah is practically walked out in everyday life.
To fulfill the Torah is to obey the Torah.
For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:18-19
Yeshua did not contradict the Torah; instead He made a fence around the commandments. In this way, He acted just as the tribe of Levi did when they camped around the holy tabernacle in order to protect the Israelites from accidentally wandering onto holy land and dying. For example, Torah says “Do not murder.” In order to build a fence around that commandment, He went even further to say do not even harbor hatred in your heart, in order to protect His people from breaking the commandment. He did this with the commandment concerning adultery and others as well.
He wants us to obey Torah from the heart working outward.
The Sabbath Breaker?
At that time Jesus passed through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick and eat some heads of grain. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath! ” He said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry — how he entered the house of God, and they ate the sacred bread, which is not lawful for him or for those with him to eat, but only for the priests? Or haven’t you read in the Law that on Sabbath days the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath and are innocent? But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here! If you had known what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Matthew 12:1-8
While they did break the Sabbath, it is permissible to break the Sabbath to “save a life.”
Saving a life is greater than the Sabbath and the temple.
Now He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a paralyzed hand. In order to accuse Him, they were watching Him closely to see whether He would heal him on the Sabbath. He told the man with the paralyzed hand, “Stand before us.” Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do what is good or to do what is evil, to save life or to kill? ” But they were silent. After looking around at them with anger and sorrow at the hardness of their hearts, He told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. Mark 3:1-5
In rabbinic law healing would only be an issue if medicine had to be made because of the prohibition on grinding the medicine; but even then saving life took precedent.
Additionally, it is prohibited to slaughter/kill on Sabbath. Shouldn‘t saving and restoring the fullness of one’s life be permitted?
Yeshua does not come against the rabbinic oral tradition but works within it.
His teachings regarded how one best keeps Shabbat, not whether or not to do so.
Yeshua and Kosher Food
Then the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why don’t Your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating bread with ritually unclean hands? ” He answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. They worship Me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commands of men. Disregarding the command of God, you keep the tradition of men.” He also said to them, “You completely invalidate God’s command in order to maintain your tradition!” Mark 7:5-9
He warns the Pharisees of neglecting the commandment of God because He wants to remind them to obey the commandments. He was never ridiculing the observance of the commandments here. In fact, He never addressed an issue with Torah observance at all, but instead was addressing sin. He wants the Pharisees to hold to the commandments rather than the tradition of men. He also wants us to be discreet with our observances and to not make a show out of them.
because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats? Mark 7:19 KJV
In the KJV, Jesus just references to meats going out the other end. He never in fact declares all foods clean in this translation.
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man. Mark 7:21-23 KJV
Jesus’ goal was to establish priorities that uphold the Torah.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy, and faith. These things should have been done without neglecting the others. Matthew 23:23 HCSB
Loving God and Loving Neighbor
All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands. Matthew 22:40 HCSB
Jesus never meant that these were the only commands that matter, He was simply stating that they are sort of the main idea of them all. In reality, there is no standard of how to love God and our neighbor without Torah to know what love looks like.
Like a favorite student in a classroom that gets the most attention, so did Pharisees get more attention than the Sadducees in Jesus’ teachings. Pharisees were never the enemy, but satan has always been and always will be. Unfortunately, he’s pinned us against one another for 2,000 years, and it’s worked.
The reality is that all Christians are Pharisees. They believe all common people should have access to study the Word of God, not just the pious. They believe in angels and demons and an afterlife. In fact, I would even consider myself a Pharisee based on these beliefs.
At that time some Pharisees came and told Him, “Go, get out of here! Herod wants to kill You! Luke 13:31 HCSB
In this passage, the Pharisees even warned Jesus of danger in an attempt to protect Him. The word “Pharisee” should not be synonymous with “hypocrite.”
Torah is the love of God and loving one‘s neighbor as oneself. However, this does not make the rest of the Torah invalid. Loving God and loving one’s fellow is like the tree and it’s branches. The fruit hanging from the tree is the rest of the Torah. The whole Torah hangs on those commandments. Teaching anything else is satanic.
The Sinless Messiah
Everyone who commits sin also breaks the law; sin is the breaking of law. 1 John 3:4 HCSB
Lawlessness is sin. Therefore, keep the law. Thinking that He came to keep the law in order to die so that we can abolish it is ludicrous.
When Jesus taught, He was speaking to a crowd of Jews who had kept the Torah for generations upon generations. He already assumed that they would all continue to keep the Torah. Speaking to a crowd of Israelites, He knew He wasn’t debating the importance of Torah, but rather explaining the real-life practical applications of it.
Anyone who truly believes He is the Messiah and is saved by this faith is called to fulfill His yoke by teaching the nations to repent and obey Torah.
For more information on this post, please visit https://hayesod.ffoz.org
or contact me directly to study together.
God bless, Sofia
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