Author: Steven R. Bruck
Old Covenant for Jews; New Covenant for Christians- True or False?
The basic understanding between Jews and Christians is that the OC (Old Covenant, or Tanakh) is for Jews and the NC (New Covenant/Testament) is for Christians. One is the Jewish Bible and the other is the Christian Bible.
I do not believe this to be true, but from a certain viewpoint the NC was written for Christians.
Before I explain why I say this, let me first identify the four different types of writings that are found in the bible:
- Divinely Dictated: these are writings of what God said written exactly as he said it. The best example is the 10 Commandments, written “with the finger of God.” (Exodus 31:13);
- Divinely Inspired: these are writings by people of what God told them to write down or repeat. Examples are the Torah and the writings of the Prophets;
- Divinely Based: these are writings by people to people explaining the meaning of the divinely dictated or inspired writings. The letters of the Apostles are examples of this type of writing; and
- Narratives: these are writings that give us a historical accounting. Examples would be the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles and the Book of Acts.
The Tanakh (OC) was written by Jews to Jews but it is for everyone in the world. God has no religion: he has his rules for how to worship him and how to treat each other. He choose Abraham’s’ descendant’s as his chosen people because of the faith of Abraham; later that faith was tested when God told Moses the children of Israel would be a nation of priests to the world (Exodus 19:6.) It is generally said God gave the Torah to the Jews, but I prefer to say God entrusted it to the Jews. It was entrusted to Jews not for their use only, but for them to learn it and live it, then teach the rest of the world how to do the same. The fact that the Torah is for everyone is undeniable because God said the Jews were to be a nation of priests: a Rabbi doesn’t teach his congregation how to be Catholic and a Priest doesn’t teach his congregation how to be Buddhists. If the Jews are God’s chosen priests to the world, and he gave them the Torah to live by, then it is clear that God wants the world to live by the Torah, too.
This is further confirmed when we read that God said those who sojourn with the Jewish people (meaning choose to live with them and adopt their lifestyle) would have the same rights as a natural born Jewish person (Lev. 24:22; Lev. 19:33), meaning not only were they legally the same but spiritually the same. As the New Covenant puts it, “adopted sons and daughters of Abraham” (Gal 3:29.) Again, if they are adopted children they are subject to the same rules of the household that the natural born children are.
The NC is different. As in the Tanakh there are some writings by Jews to Jews, and these include the books of James, Hebrews, Peter, John and Jude. However, most of the NC (about 2/3) is composed of the letters written by Shaul, and although these were written by a Jew, they were not written to Jews- they were written to Gentiles who were learning how to be Jewish. So, as I said above, from a certain viewpoint we could make an argument that the NC is a “Christian” bible because the majority of it was written to Christians.
Both the OC and NC were written by Jews. Originally each was written to a specific group but they both are for the entire world. What went wrong was that the NC writings were difficult for the Gentiles to understand because they were written by Jews very well versed in Torah and who had a Jewish “mindset.” There were many more Gentiles that came to accept Messiah than Jews, and as the Jews that wrote these letters died off, Gentiles who did not know the Torah and had never lived a Jewish lifestyle didn’t recognize implied meanings (which Jews would understand) in these letters. Consequently, they began to interpret them incorrectly. This pollution of the original meanings culminated with Constantine and the Christian Canon he devised, which completed the separation into two religions: one that worshiped God and obeyed Torah waiting for their Messiah and one that worshiped God and accepted his Messiah but ignored the Torah.
For the record, the letters from Shaul (Paul) were instructions to Gentiles becoming Jewish advising them of the difference between legalistic Torah observance and faithful Torah obedience. The former is a Pharisaical teaching based on complete legal performance of Torah laws as the path to salvation; the latter is based on understanding that we are saved by faith and the Torah should be obeyed because it is God’s instructions to help us live a better and holier life.
There is a big difference between obeying God just to obey and obeying God as a result of faithful trust in him.
For me the Tanakh and the NC are one book: it starts with Genesis and ends with Revelation. It is the story of God and his relationship with the world, how he honored Abraham’s faith by choosing his descendants to be entrusted with the Torah so they could teach the world God’s laws and rulings that lead to eternal life (Deut. 30:15-19; Ezekiel 18:23.) The first part of the bible brings us from creation to the dispersion of the Jewish people and their hope in Messiah. The rest of the book tells us of the coming of Messiah and the spreading of God’s salvation to all people, finishing with a vision of the Olam Haba (world to come.)
One day people will recognize the OC and NC are one book for everyone. Until then each one of us must practice good exegesis; that means to read the bible remembering the four types of writings and considering what was written to whom and why. We need to maintain proper context, using hermeneutics and the culturally correct definition of words and phrases for that time. And we must read the entire bible- Genesis through Revelation. It is only when you have an understanding and knowledge of the Old Covenant that you will realize there is nothing “new” in the New Covenant.
What Constitutes Using God’s Name in Vain?
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Just about everyone who knows anything about God has heard it said that we must not use the name of the Lord in vain. This is the 3rd commandment given by God on Mount Sinai.
But what does it really mean, to not take the name of the Lord in vain?
I have looked through “Strong’s Concordance”, the “JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh”, my Soncino edition of the Chumash, and the “Complete Jewish Bible” to find an answer. What I found were, from these different sources, all different versions. And when this commandment is repeated later in Deuteronomy the Hebrew is identical but the English interpretation was a little bit different.
I “Googled” the term “in vain” and this is what I got:
Vain is from Latin vanus “empty,” and in English it originally meant “lacking value or effect, futile”; we still say “a vain attempt” using that sense, and the phrase “in vain” means “without success.” Normally, though, vain means “conceited, too proud of oneself.”
There is an additional part of this commandment which (apparently) doesn’t get as much attention; God further states that he will not hold anyone taking his name in vain guiltless. Clearly, God doesn’t take this lightly.
Lightly….that is the way the JPS Tanakh interpreted the commandment. In other words, don’t just throw God’s name around like it doesn’t mean anything. Don’t use it in an oath, don’t use it as a way to demonstrate importance and don;t use it flippantly.
The Chumash states that this commandment deals with oaths and vows, in that we shouldn’t use God’s name for vanity or falsehood. His name must not be used to testify to anything that is untrue or empty or in a manner that renders it useless by joining it with anything that is insincere or unimportant.
The rabbinical tradition states the name of the Lord is not to be used or uttered unnecessarily in common conversation. The only valid use of God’s name is when taking an oath in a court of law.
God’s name is the Tetragrammaton, the four letters that are printed in the Torah that God first gave to Moses. Those letters are Y-H-V-H (Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh) and Jews pronounce it as Adonai, which means “Lord.” There are no vowels in Hebrew so we don’t know how it was originally pronounced, but that is God’s Holy Name, his “first name” (if you will) and the one that definitely is the one he means when he gave the third commandment.
We use the term God, but that isn’t really a name- it is a descriptive label. Lord, HaShem, Adonai, Father, Creator…all these “names” for God are really labels, in a way- they are what he is and what he does, but they aren’t his name. If we use any of those in a false oath or a lie, we are still violating the third commandment.
I see all too often God’s Holy Name, the 4-letters, being used left and right, being plastered on someone’s Face Book page, and being pronounced in (at least) 5 different ways, each person adamant that they are saying it correctly. Not to sound bigoted, but the ones using God’s name are, overwhelmingly, Gentiles. And in my opinion people who constantly use God’s name are being disrespectful to God. No Jewish person would think of using the Tetragrammaton as a Face Book avatar, or in a banner for a discussion group, or in conversation.
I understand that Gentiles have grown up using God’s name and calling on Jesus constantly, in everything they do, in their prayers, as an expletive, and as a means of getting someone’s attention in a conversation. Since most of the Torah is ignored by the Christian world, this commandment is often known but not obeyed. I understand that is how they were brought up, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. Not to God.
The name of the Lord is to be respected and used only when absolutely necessary, as in making a sincere oath or when swearing to a truth in a court of law. That is what Jews have done since God told us not to use it vainly.
Let’s not forget that using something vainly also infers a conceited attitude. I have seen, way too often, arguments by people who are using God’s holy name as a means of showing off how much they know. They argue that their years of study justify their pronunciation and they flagrantly announce God’s name every chance they get. They are using God’s name to show how much they know, with no respect for the name or who’s name it is. That is the ultimate “use in vain” as far as I’m concerned.
One of the great methods for preventing sin that the Rabbis have created is called placing fences around the law. To prevent trespassing (violating) the law they put a “fence” around it. For instance, to make sure we do not to boil a calf in its mother’s milk (Lev. 11) we will not boil any calf in milk at all (first fence.) But that may not be enough, so let’s not have meat and dairy together (second fence.) A fence around the fence around the fence around the law. It is a good way to prevent accidentally violating the commandments, but the downside is that it is also a snowball rolling downhill, and the good idea became a terrible burden on the people, which is the argument Yeshua had when he talked against the traditions of the Pharisees. Traditions are not bad, but the ones that add to God’s laws so much they become an additional burden, are.
To those that are thinking about Joel 2:32, or Romans 10:13, or 1 Cor.1:2, or whatever other verse you find that tells us we should “call on the name of the Lord” it doesn’t mean we are commanded to use the Tetragrammaton. To “call on the name of the Lord” does NOT mean that we are to use his actual name, the Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh: it means to ask him for something, to open our hearts to him and approach him with a humble and contrite spirit in repentance. It is more of a metaphor than a commandment, and it is not justification for using the holy name of God.
I will never try to pronounce the Tetragrammaton. I respect the Lord too much to try to get on a “first name” basis with him. The tradition not to use the holy name of God that Jews have followed for millennia is, for me, a really good one. It is not burdensome and is (in fact) an excellent way to avoid accidentally violating the Third Commandment. I think that if you also do not ever write, use or pronounce God’s holy name you will be blessed.
Try it- what could it hoit?
Video for What Constitutes Using God’s Name in Vain?
Who Really Made Christianity a New Religion?
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Being raised on Long Island as a Reform Jew I was always told that Jesus was a Jew who betrayed his Jewish roots and created Christianity, a totally separate religion which has historically hated and persecuted the Jewish people. Consequently, no real Jew believes in Jesus; in fact, if you believe in Jesus you can’t be a Jew anymore!
I spent 2/3 of my life believing this; fortunately, I have learned the truth about Christianity, who Jesus really was and what he really taught. And through that study and the guiding of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) I have come to accept that Yeshua (Jesus’s real name) was a Jew, still is a Jew, and taught from the Torah. He did not create a new and separate religion at all.
As I studied the New Covenant writings, especially the Epistles of Shaul (Paul) I began to understand that he did not convert to Christianity or write against the Torah and Judaism (as most Christian teachings profess), but remained a Jew and always confirmed the importance of following the Torah. The problem with reading Shaul’s writings is that one has to get into the right “mindset” to understand what Shaul was saying, as well as be trained in biblical exegesis. Shaul wrote to Gentiles that were first learning how to be Jews; there wasn’t anything else to be at that time. You were either a Jew or a Pagan. The early churches he set up weren’t churches at all; at least, not as we understand what a church is today. The first time they were called a “church” was in the early 1600’s, when King James decided to call them that, despite the fact that his bible experts disagreed. In my opinion, the organizations that Shaul created as he preached the Gospels would be more accurately called “Kehillot“, the plural of the Hebrew word Kehillah which means “community organizations.” So although Shaul’s preaching has been confused and misinterpreted probably ever since he wrote the first letter, he did not create Christianity as a separate religion.
I finally came to understand that the Christian Canon of today was developed mainly by Constantine at the Council of Nicene in the 3rd Century. The rules and separation of Christian worship from it’s beginnings in Judaic worship was confirmed and finalized, so to speak, by what Constantine did. Therefore, I (and many others I know) have been accusing Constantine of being the real creator of Christianity as a separate religion from Judaism.
I have been wrong.
Constantine definitely is the creator of Christian Canon that all of the modern Christian religions are based on, but he was not the first one to identify Christianity as a religion separate and unique from Judaism. It wasn’t Ignatius of Antioch, either, although he certainly did what he could to separate it (he changed the Sabbath to Sunday and also stated that one cannot have Judaism and Christianity together.) And it wasn’t first declared separate and unique by any of the other early “church” fathers.
“Sherman, warm up the WABAC Machine and let’s go back before Yeshua and just after the Maccabees revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, which is the story of Hanukkah.”
After that last Seleucid king was defeated, there was still political upheaval in Judea and the Judeans invited the Hasmoneans to mediate, eventually leading to Roman rule over Judea. However, because the Romans were “invited” in they allowed the Jews to continue to worship in accordance to their religion. This was very unique, since almost every Roman-conquered city or province was forced to worship as Rome did. Under normal conditions, it was illegal for any Roman ruled people to have their own religion (this is important to remember.)
Now we come to the point where the power elite Judeans, who rejected Yeshua as Messiah, needed to get Pontius Pilate to convict Yeshua. So what did they say? They first accused him of blasphemy, but Pilate said that was an internal religious issue and not a legal one. They next accused him of stirring up the people and telling them not to pay taxes, making him an enemy of the Emperor. Pilate didn’t fall for that one, either. Their final accusation was that Yeshua was a King, which he admitted to being but said his kingdom was not of this world, so Pilate had no legal reason to find him guilty of treason. In truth, they couldn’t get Pilate to find Yeshua guilty of anything. They had the same problem with Shaul when they brought him before the Roman rulers of whatever province he was preaching in. But then later, the Jews in the provinces around Judea who wanted to stop the Apostles from preaching about Yeshua found the one argument they could use that got the Romans to take action: they accused the Apostles of creating a new religion! This was against Roman law. The Jewish religion was tolerated by Rome but this new “Way” was denounced as a separate religion from Judaism so Rome had to take action. By the 2nd Century, both Jews and Christians were being persecuted, but for different reasons: Jewish persecution was for political reasons (they were rebelling against Roman rule) and Christian persecution was for religious reasons (practicing a religion that wasn’t approved by Rome.)
So, who really created Christianity as a separate religion? It was the Jewish power elite of the First Century! We created our own “Frankenstein’s Monster” which turned against us and since then caused us harm and suffering. This was a real surprise to me: imagine…it was us! Jews are the reason that Christianity has become a separate religion from its Jewish roots. Who wuddah tought it?
If the Jewish elite had only ignored the Jews and Gentiles that accepted Yeshua as Messiah, then who knows what might have happened? But, of course, that didn’t happen and maybe it was, in the long run, for the best. After all, didn’t Shaul write to the Kihillot in Rome (Romans 11:11):
“Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.”
This shows that God’s plan of salvation for the Gentiles could only come through the Jews and eventually we will all be one in Messiah.
Now, for those of you out there who love to take a word or sentence out of context and go off in all sorts of tangential arguments that have nothing to do with the point of the message, let me address the fact that when I say “the Jews” I am not using it as a universally descriptive term but a reference to the power elite of the Judean political system at that time. And let me also say the Jews aren’t the only ones responsible: Ignatius, Constantine and nearly every Pope and Christian leader since the 2nd Century has contributed to making Christianity a separate and different religion. Christianity has become a separate and unique religion from Judaism as the result of the work of many people over many years.
My message today is that Christianity as a separate religion wasn’t proposed or initiated by Yeshua or any of his early followers- it came about as a result of the accusation from the non-Believing Jewish power elite in order to give Rome legal justification to persecute those people who accepted Yeshua as the Messiah.
So Yeshua didn’t create a new religion. Neither did the Apostles or Shaul or Constantine- the ones who first identified Christianity as a new religion were the Jews of the First Century!
Video for Who Really Made Christianity a New Religion?
Parashah B’Midbar 2018 (In the Wilderness) Numbers 1:1 – 4:20
I am still not ready to do a video due to my cough left over from a bad cold. Hopefully next time I will be able to get through without hacking.
As we begin this parashah, which also begins the 4th book of the Torah, God commands that a census be taken. All the tribes, except the tribe of Levi, are counted (only the men) and based on this, to some degree, the arrangement of the camp was given which outlined where each tribe will pitch their tents and the marching order. The tabernacle is placed in the middle of the camp, surrounded by the Levites .
A separate census is taken of the Levites and God (again) states that the Levites are the tribe chosen to be his representatives performing the duties of the Tabernacle. God assigns the different Levitical families their tasks with regards to moving of the Tabernacle and worship. God also chooses the Levites to be substitution for the first-born of all the other Israelites, as God had previously told Moses that all the first-born of Israel belong to him as a ransom for the first-born of Egypt that God had put to death (Exodus 13:15.)
The relationship of the Levites to the other tribes is so important for us to understand, as it represents the relationship between Man and God, Yeshua and Man and Yeshua and God.
God is always the ultimate and only spirit we worship. He is, he was and he always shall be God, the Father, the Judge, the Executioner, the Savior and the Creator. He is also the Destroyer. He is everything to everyone at every moment; he is the Holiest of all Holies.
The Levites were God’s representatives on earth to the Israelites. They were to help the individuals find atonement through the sacrificial system that God provided so that the people could be saved from their iniquity and sins. The Levites were to be a living example of Torah and were to teach the Torah to the Israelites.
The Jewish people were God’s representatives to the Gentiles: a nation of priests (Exodus 19:6) living in accordance with the Torah in order to show the rest of the world how to worship God, how to treat each other and how to atone for their iniquity and sins to become holy.
Yeshua is God’s ultimate and final representative to all humanity, acting for our benefit by providing through his work on earth the opportunity for every single human being to be saved from their own iniquity and sins.
Can you see how this progression of salvation works? It is like a pyramid, which is the most stable of all shapes: the Jewish people are the base of this pyramid, the Gentiles are built upon the Jewish people and Yeshua is the capstone.
The Torah is the foundation upon which this pyramid of salvation is supported. Because Christianity has separated itself from the Torah (for the most part) they are trying to be a separate level that has no foundation. As such, it cannot support any type of roof- Christianity has made itself into a tree with no roots and no canopy.
Didn’t Shaul (Paul) tell the Gentiles converting to Judaism (because that is what was happening in the First Century when a Pagan chose to worship Yeshua) in Romans 11:11 that they are being grafted onto a tree? How can a branch survive if it is grafted onto a tree but refuses to accept the nourishment from the roots of that tree? When you graft a wild olive branch onto a cultured tree, does the whole tree become wild? Of course not- the wild branch becomes cultured.
God has established his plan of salvation and told us all about it in the Tanakh. He has set the rules and the parameters for atonement on an eternal basis. The New Covenant (B’rit Chadashah) is built upon the Tanakh and gives us the final “steps” of God’s plan. The Torah tells us how to live, the rest of the Tanakh shows us when we fail to keep God’s commands we are punished, and when we repent we are forgiven. It provides for us the hope in a Messiah, which we read about and finally see coming in the B’rit Chadashah.
God to the Jews; Jews to the Gentiles; Yeshua to the Jews and the Gentiles; and ultimately Jews and Gentiles through Yeshua back to God.
That is the Circle of Life- eternal life- that God has provided for us and we see it beginning right here in this parashah.
God’s Plan is Being Accomplished and We Are Complaining!
I am still a little under the weather so there will not be a video for this message.
I have been using Face Book as a means to advance this ministry, and I have many friends who I know personally outside the FB domain. I follow them and see all too often postings about how the media is attacking Israel, about how the UN is attacking Israel, or about how the Democrats here in the US are either attacking Israel or supporting Hamas and the enemies of Israel.
I also see this in discussion groups (Christian, Messianic and Hebraic Roots), all kvetching about how everyone is coming against Israel with lies and how the media and the world are accepting it as truth.
To all this I say….DUH!! What did you expect? Isn’t this God’s plan? Isn’t this what the Prophets and Yeshua and John’s vision all tell us is going to happen?
In Matthew 16:21-23, when Yeshua was telling his Talmudim (Disciples) that he had to suffer and die, Kefa (Peter) said this should never happen. And what did Yeshua reply to him? He said:
But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me. For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.
Kefa was only seeing the worldly events that were to happen and did not recognize or accept that what was going to happen would result in the salvation of the world! He was all about the flesh and nothing about the spirit.
Earlier, Yeshua was telling a parable and when his Talmudim later asked him to explain it he said (Matthew 13:15-16):
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.…
He was, in a way, chiding them for not understanding or appreciating what was happening. Their eyes and ears were blessed because Yeshua was going to explain to them the meaning of his parables, but they were still as “thick” as everyone else. They had the Messiah right there, in the very midst of them, and they couldn’t appreciate it.
Of course, they did later.
What I am complaining about is those people who are constantly complaining about the treatment Israel is getting from the world and want the world to change it’s attitude. This won’t happen, it shouldn’t happen, and in fact, we should not be kvetching about it! What we should be doing instead is praising God for his wonderful plan of salvation that we are blessed to see happening in our own lifetime!
Look…I hate seeing Israel under such pressure, and I look forward to the peace that God will bring, but it won’t come until after the Tribulation. That is God’s plan, we are aware of it and we are seeing it happen. Stop complaining about God’s plan coming to fruition and instead shout, “Halleluyah!! Come, Lord Yeshua!”
I am not happy seeing Israel and Believers all over the world being persecuted, but I am overjoyed that the plan of God is being realized and brought to it’s completion.
Aren’t you?
The Meaning of Life in a Nutshell
There won’t be a video today because coming off a cruise Donna and I were on last week we both got sick, which has left me voiceless. Apparently an answer to someone’s prayer.
Today I would like to talk about something that seems complex but is really quite simple: the meaning of life.
This is what we call the “Eternal Question,” one that people have always wondered about and no one has really ever answered to everyone’s satisfaction.
My answer is simple and it is based on my understanding of the instructions God gave to us in the Torah. I also have considered the writings of Moses, the Prophets and especially the teachings of Yeshua. I have studied and thought about these with my focus on what the future holds.
And what the future holds is destruction on a universal scale. It started with the iniquity of Mankind destroying the ideal world God created. He chose the descendants of Abraham (through Isaac, the son of the Promise) to bring order back into the world, but they failed to do the job well. Ultimately, it resulted in the dispersion of God’s people throughout the world. God sent his Messiah to bring us back into communion with him, but (again) people screwed that up and it resulted in man’s creation of many different religions, most of them losing sight of the original instructions God gave us. We are now at the point where the next major step will be the end of everything through the Tribulation, which I believe we are seeing come to fruition today.
What the future holds is death and destruction like no one has ever seen before, not even those in the Flood, which will result with the end of humanity as we know it.
Not too happy a prospect, is it? Well, it’s not my idea- that’s what we are told to expect. So we may also ask what meaning can life have if everything we do is going to be for nothing?
The answer is: we aren’t doing it for this life!
From birth through death the existence we all suffer through is only a “Waiting Room.”
The meaning of life is this: we are given this life to decide where we want to live for eternity.
That’s it! Like I said from the beginning, it’s simple- what we do while we are alive in this physical plane of existence is going to determine where we spend eternity. God gives us two lives: the one we live for a short period of time and the one we live forever. What we do during this short life God has given us will determine where we will live for all eternity.
Now all that is left for each of us to ask ourselves is this: Where do I want to spend eternity? The good news is that you have the right to choose: the bad news is you don’t know how much time you are given to make that choice.
My advice is don’t waste whatever time you have thinking about it.
Parashah Emore 2018 (speak) Leviticus 21-24
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Chapter 23 of Leviticus tells us of the Moedim, the Holy Days we are to celebrate to the Lord. These are the only God-commanded festivals that we are to observe; that doesn’t mean we cannot observe other festivals to the Lord, such as Purim, Hanukkah, and other biblical holidays. It is just that these are the ones we MUST observe, according to God.
But I am not going to talk about this chapter, or anything else in this parashah other than Leviticus 22:32-33:
And ye shall not profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel; I am the Lord who hallow you, that brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord.
The Jewish people do not pronounce the Tetragrammaton, the four-letters that make up the name of God, ever. We are afraid to profane his name, which is called Chillul Hashem. We do not even try to figure out how it is pronounced. Why? Because we are following God’s command not to profane his holy name. Any attempt that is wrong would profane it, even if we meant to honor it. The best and safest way to honor and not profane God’s holy name is to never pronounce it. By never trying to pronounce it we are practicing Kiddush Hashem, which is hallowing the name of God.
I do not believe there is anything wrong, so to speak, with the study of the Paleo-Hebrew, in which the Vav of the holy name is pronounced as a “W” instead of as a “V.” I do believe it is wrong to use the “W” instead of the “V”, and in any way try to vocalize God’s holy name. Judaism has added the vowel points for the word Adonai (Lord) to the four letters of the Tetragrammaton (Y-H-V-H) to symbolize God’s name. The way that would be pronounced is “Jehovah”, which isn’t God’s name. It might be, and if so, then we shouldn’t use it. The holy name of God is often abbreviated in Hebrew and even when we see the holy name in the Torah, we say Adonai to make certain we do not profane it.
I am upset when I see so many Christians who are trying to get to know their Hebrew roots totally ignore the traditional (and commanded) respect Judaism shows for God’s holy name. Worse than that, they misinterpret the bible and ignore cultural idioms to try to justify that we MUST use God’s holy name. In fact, some people have even presented the argument that if we do not use God’s name then we may be calling on demons or the Devil, himself! How utterly ridiculous!
I have been insulted and chastised when I ask Gentiles not to use God’s holy name, and that it doesn’t matter how it is pronounced- God knows who he is. If you call out to God with a contrite spirit, a humble attitude and an open heart, do any of you really think that God will reject your prayer simply because you haven’t used and properly pronounced his holy name? On the other hand, do you think he will be happy if you use the name that he specifically told you NOT to use?
I suppose someone could make an argument by first identifying what, exactly, is profaning the name? What usage of his holy name would God consider to be a profanation of that name?
I don’t know. But I do know I wouldn’t want to chance profaning Gods holy name.
Intimate knowledge of the Lord doesn’t include calling him by his first name and going bar-hopping with him. Intimate knowledge of God starts, first and foremost, with respect for him; how many times in the bible do we read that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom? And when we acknowledge that he is holier than anything and deserves respect more than anyone we can show that respect for him by forgetting our prideful need to know something nobody else knows, i.e., the correct spelling and pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.
I appeal to everyone hearing or reading this that if you are one of those who wants to know how the holy name of God is pronounced to please reconsider. The fact is that today no one really knows how to pronounce Gods holy name, and because God told us we shouldn’t profane it we should not even try.
I believe we all should be faithful enough to know that when we call on God (using a name that is not his holy name) with a proper attitude of humility and repentance, he will hear our prayer.
The way we show respect to someone is by respecting their name, and God is more deserving of worship and respect than anyone else, so show the respect for his name that he demands of us.