Hebraic Studies - Knowledge & Wisdom - “Know, Believe and Understand”
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Note: On this page I may show the four letter blessed *“Memorial
Name” of the Almighty in Ivrit - 
- Y-H-V-H, which
we usually pronounce as “Adonai” or
“HaShem”. At all times treat the most blessed
Name with great sanctity and when we even see the Name, we should
say “blessed be His Sanctified Name.”
*“This
is My Name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.”
Shemot - Exodus 3:15.
Genuine
Knowledge and Wisdom
Can only come from Elohim
“‘Ye
are My witnesses, saith (HaSHEM), and My servant whom
I have chosen; that ye may know and believe Me, and understand
that I am He; before Me there was no Elohim (G-d) formed,
neither shall any be after Me’” Yeshayahu – Isaiah
43: 10 (JPS).
Please Note: I will be using the “Jewish Publication Society” (JPS version of the Torah/Tanakh) with some minor updates.
For who may not use a Hebrew/English Torah/Tanakh and have a Bible the verse may occasionally differ by one up or down
With
As soon as we fully understand what is meant by what our Creator said in that verse, it will open the door of a fuller kind of understanding, and as you may well know, a door allows access to something, not just to the outside of a room, or a building but also to the inside.
This kind of accesses and entry will see a much deeper and a more personal relationship, that will reveal Elohim’s character to you, and at the same time it will expose your character to Him, and your true character to yourself. All it needs is acting upon those three powerful words “KNOW, BELIEVE and to UNDERSTAND”, and we should realise that these three words were given to us in a specific order for a special reason, and I will cover that understanding further just down the page, and believe me it is very powerful!
Let me tell you that your will has the potential and the key to unlock this essence of words, and they are buried deep within the overlapping layers of the mind and heart, some are hidden because of the self. With these words comes an overwhelming plethora of the physical and spiritual world, which offers a different instruction than the one that is spoken of here. We will realise that the essence of the self has to be overcome, for the self holds us back from fully serving our beloved Elohim!
One big problem in the world, and it applies not just to Judaism but other faiths as well, that men, some who in good faith, whilst other in ignorance altered certain things in the writings received from our Creator, be it for whatever reason. But the truth is that our Elohim, blessed be He, has clearly said that we cannot change or alter his words or commands in any shape or form!
“Ye
shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither
shall ye diminish from it, that ye may keep the
commandments of your Elohim which I
command you” Devarim - Deuteronomy 4:2 (JPS).
your Elohim
hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be
well with you” Devarim - Deuteronomy 5:28-29
(JPS).
This may be a strange question, but believe me it is an important one, for most have no idea of the origin of that word.
Obviously everyone on the planet will have heard the following words; ‘God’, ‘Scriptures’ and ‘Bible’ and even an atheist is well aware of these terms and what they signify.
But the question is most serious; who is G-d and what is our blessed Creator’s wonderful Scriptural Name as found in the Torah and throughout the Tanakh? We need to remember what our loving Creator has so clearly stated;
“This
is My Name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.”
Shemot - Exodus 3:15 (JPS).
But what is so tragic that not only has His blessed Name been hijacked and changed, but also our His blessed Attribute, what we may also call His Title, what He is, Blessed Be He!
Due to men’s own personal religious dogma they have erroneously hidden both His Sacred Name as well as his ‘Attribute’ as is written in the Torah and changed it to something that is sadly so very wrong. Tragically, long ago the word for our “Elohim”, blessed be He, was changed to “Gad” then “God”, then we as Jews somehow decided it was so holy that we commenced to write it as “G-d” as it was to sacred to spell it in full. The question is who decided that it was sacred and where did that new title that that became law that the rabbis of old decided on, and sadly most continues to use this word and some even claim that it is also a Name of the Almighty, which I am sorry to say is completely false!
The truth about the word ‘God’ is an ancient Gothic name of a pagan deity and yes it is mentioned in both Yeshayahu – Isaiah as well as in Yahushua - Joshua as it being a pagan word. We should know that ‘Allah’ is actually a pagan name of the ‘Moon deity’, and so many names of false deity’s are being used throughout the world.
But, who is this pagan ‘god’, which is spoken of in the Tanakh? Well you can read about this pagan god in the verses listed below, where Elohim clearly warns us;
“But
ye that forsake , that forget My holy mountain, that prepare a
table for Fortune (Heb: “Gad” being the Syrio-Babylonian
god of fortune), and that offer mingled wine in full measure unto
Destiny (Heb: “Meni” the god of
destiny)” Yeshayahu - Isaiah 65:11 (JPS).
The words given to us through the prophet Yeshayahu
- Isaiah demonstrate the widespread worship of various pagan
deities, one of having the name “Gad” that
In Yashushua - Joshua 11:17, 12:7, 13:5, the
place “Baal-Gad” - 
was where Baal was worshipped as
“Gad”, the pagan “god of fortune”.
The evil name of “Baal-gad”
was considered to be a very powerful deity who was supposed to
control the planet Jupiter, which was a part of ancient
Semitic worship and it was later embraced by many successive
nations, including Greece and in Roman mythology, Jupiter is the
ruler of all the gods, the son of the god Saturn, whom he
overthrew. Thus in
As is written in the Torah, our blessed Creator
of “heaven and the earth” and all that is therein
clearly gave us His most sacred Name, which is -
Y-H-V-H, blessed be His Sacred Name, as well as having given us
His Attribute or Title, being “Elohim”. And it is a
grave sin to change or translate His blessed Name and Attribute
into anything that even resembles anything that is related to a
foreign pagan deity.
I will now return to those three powerful words found in the verse I placed sat the very head of this study;
“‘Ye
are My witnesses, saith , and My servant whom I have
chosen; that ye may know and believe Me, and understand
that I am He; before Me there was no Elohim formed, neither shall
any be after Me’” Yeshayahu - Isaiah 43:10 (JPS).
1st Word:
In Ivrit - Hebrew the word “Know” is “Yada” a word that conveys the first pillar of acknowledgement that underlies Elohim’s greatness and character. As Elohim knows us, therefore we should know Him.
The question we could ask ourselves is how do we know and acknowledge Him? Well every Word in Ivrit especially concerning Elohim and His Word contain many rich layers of teaching, just as we have many layers to our personality. Simply put, He wants you to know Him as the Creator yet do so on a more personal and an intimate level. Thus, when we examine this word, in Ivrit the deeper layers of the meanings within “Yada” when it is pealed away we will find and understand the layers, being to know, confess, praise, to give thanks, to express recognition and declaration. And all this should be part of our faith and what Elohim means to us.
2nd
Word:
If we fully believe and confess our sins and errors to Elohim on “Yom Kippur” (Day of Atonement) we will be forgiven and supported and established in Him, and we must continue to be faithful in following Him by keeping the Mitzvoth, the Torah! By doing this you will fully ac knowledge Who He is, and what He means to you.
3rd
Word:
It refers to knowledge, which is far superior than simply gathering information. It is necessary to first know how to use His knowledge correctly that enables the power of judgement and insight.
A person can perceive with his senses: with his
eyes he can discern, but;
“Wisdom
is before him that hath understanding, but the eyes of a
fool are in the ends of the earth” Mishle Shlomo - Proverbs
17:24 (JPS).
“A servant will not be corrected by words; for though he understand, there will be no response” Mishle Shlomo - Proverbs 29:19 (JPS).
Although ears can understand, the actual Ivrit
word for “understand” can also mean “feel”.
“Before your pots can feel Heb: “Bin” - Understand) the thorns, He will sweep it away with a whirlwind, the raw and the burning alike” Tehillim - Psalm 58:10 (JPS) - Verse 9 in regular Bibles.
The truth is we need to pray for a desire and
to feel the fullness of His truth and we will come to fully Know
Him, once we know who He is only then will we really come to know
and Believe in Him, and only when a complete and dedicated
faith has entered our lives will we Understand the
important things that are related to our Elohim and His Torah!
“Teach
me, O , the way of Thy statutes; and I will keep it
at every step. Give me understanding, that I keep Thy Torah and
observe it with my whole heart” Tehillim - Psalm 119:33-34 (JPS).
As since this insight is uniquely
Elohim’s, He can reveal or conceal it;
“Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the prudence of their prudent men shall be hid” Yeshayahu - Isaiah 29:14 (JPS).
The seat of insight is the heart and it is the
heart, which discerns (or fails to discern) the works of Elohim
blessed be He.
Below is some good guidance from our beloved
teachers from the Tanakh.
“Because
they give no heed (Understand) to the works of , nor
to the operation of His hands He will break them down and not
build them up” Tehillim - Psalm 28:5 (JPS).
“Then
shalt thou understand the fear of , and find the knowledge
of Elohim” Shlomo - Proverbs 2:5 (JPS).
“Then shalt thou understand righteousness and justice, and equity, yea, every good path” Shlomo - Proverbs 2:9 (JPS).
And of course we must obey His will, and thus
let us read the following found in; Tehillim - Psalm 111:10.
is the beginning of wisdom; a good
understanding have all they that do thereafter” Tehillim -
Psalm 111:10 (JPS).
While ‘understanding’ is a gift from
Elohim it certainly does not come automatically. To obtain a full
“understanding” does require persistent diligence. For
t is not just our level of IQ. One is at fault if they do not
have it and in fact, not to pursue His understanding will incur
Elohim’s punishment and this is summed up in its entirety in
the 22 verses found in the following proverb found in Mishle
Shlomo - Proverbs chapter 2.
, and
find the knowledge of Elohim.
For
giveth
wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth
up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that
walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth
the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness,
and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.
When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her Elohim.
For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it” Shlomo - Proverbs 2:1-22 (JPS).
It is also used as a preposition, “in the
interval”, between indicating an interval with respect to
the object, e.g. between you and between our Elohim, blessed be
He! We are instructed to live a life filled with love and praise
of our Elohim, and He will guide as, if we are only willing to
seek what He has told us through His Chosen prophets. But sadly
so many tend to live a life in the “I, me and myself”
and refuse His Torah then the following verse could sadly apply,
which I pray is not the case!
“But
your iniquities have separated between you and your Elohim and
your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear”
Yeshayahu - Isaiah 59:2 (JPS).
You will note that I have left some space (an
interval) above, and this space is very important for it means
for us to stop and to pause in our thinking and to soak up all
His understanding, and not allow our humanistic thought take
over. I am sure that you will have heard the comment how people
are generally living in the “I, me and, myself”
for sadly as some of us will know, this has become such a self-scented
world, and I am sure that we are aware that things have
dramatically deteriorated within the human race at large, as
there is sadly so much selfishness and evil in the world.
Friends, I see a little time and space as a release valve of the mind to expel that which is our, and I do mean what I mentioned earlier, the selfish “I, me and, myself” kind of understanding, doing it “my-way” and to replace that with one that which comes from our beloved Elohim, blessed be He!
Thus we have now looked deeply at and into the meaning of those wonderful three words, and when we apply these words full and understand the blessed meanings to whom it is referring, our Elohim, blessed be He, I pray we will be able to know Him much better. Thus believe in all He has given us, especially in His Torah, and understand that when He said;
“I am He. Before Me there was no Elohim formed, neither shall any be after Me” Yeshayahu – Isaiah 43: 10 (JPS).
He is indeed the One and Only Elohim and we fully know, believe and understand this every time when we say the “Shema Yisroel” for we will be clearly stating that He is indeed “Echad - One”.
We will commence by reading one of the most powerful verses and instructions found in the Torah.
“‘They
( (YHVH), the Elohim
of your fathers, the Elohim of Avraham - Abraham, the Elohim of
Yitzchak - Isaac, and the Elohim of Ya’akov - Jacob, hath
sent me unto you; this is My Name for ever, and this is My
memorial unto all generations” Shemot - Exodus 3:13-15 (JPS).
Throughout this chapter Elohim, blessed be He,
calls Himself - YHVH, and we know that in various
verses for example in Tehillim – Psalm 68;5 that the blessed
Name is written differently, for in this verse and at other times
it is shown as “Yah” - 
. Also see Yeshayahu - Isaiah
12;2, 26:4 and 38 11.
Tehillim – Psalm 68;5 (JPS version) also
uses “the LORD”, when is really written in Hebrew as -
Yah.
“Sing
unto Elohim, sing praises to His name; extol Him that rideth upon
the skies, whose name is the LORD (in Ivrit it is written as ); and
exult ye before Him” Tehillim – Psalm 68;5 (JPS).
In the JPS version of the Tahakh the Sanctified
Name is always written as “the LORD” in English, but in
the Ivrit text it is shown as both as (YHVH) or -
(Yah).
In each of the verses of Shemot - Exodus
3:13-15 the importance is placed on the Sacred Name of Elohim and
it is to be a “Memorial to all Generations.”
What is meant by the word “Memorial?”
The word “Memorial” in Shemot
- Exodus is “Zichri,” whilst the word is from
“Zecher,” being a primitive root meaning to
“mark,” to “remember” and to
“mention.” The word “mention”
also appears in Yirmyahu - Jeremiah 20:9 (JPS).
“Then I said, ‘I will not make mention
of Him, nor speak any more in His Name.’”
The word “mention” is the same
Ivrit word as “memorial.” Without doubt, we are
taught in the Torah to make “mention of the Name of
YaHVaH Elohim,” not only with our mind but also with our
mouths.
Words throughout the Tanakh tend to have
meanings, and in the case when our Elohim said “I AM”,
which in Ivrit is “Hayah” - 
,
and this comes from the primitive root, being “Hayah”
that means “to exist”, in addition we also know
well that the Ivrit for “Praise the LORD”, of course
“Hallu-Yah” or as it is said in general by
others as “Hallelujah”.
“Keep my commands and follow them. I am . Do
not profane My Sanctified Name. I must be acknowledged as
Sanctified by the Children of Israel. I am , who makes you
Sanctified and who brought you out of .”
Vayikra - Leviticus 22:31-33 (JPS).
Whenever we see “the LORD” written in
the Torah and throughout the Tanakh, now we have read the above
it should be obvious by now that there our blessed Elohim has an
actual Name, and our Heavenly Father clearly declared it in
Shemot, that His Sanctified Name is - “YHVH”
as we now also know is written as - “Yah”. In fact
the Sanctified Name in the original is written over 6,000 times
in the Tanakh.
Thus we may ask, what was the reason that priests and rabbis of old, suddenly changed protocol and forbade everyone never pronounce the Sanctified Name of Elohim? Sadly it was due to a complete misunderstanding by those priests and rabbis of ancient days of the third of the “Ten Commandments” (Heb: “Aseret HaDibrot” as found in Shemot - Exodus 20:1-13 and Devarim - Deuteronomy 5:6-17.
“Thou
shall not take the Name of thy Elohim in vain”
Shemot -Exodus 20:6 and Davarim - Deuteronomy 5:10 (JPS).
In Ivrit 
is translated as “thou shalt
not take in vain”. The word here translated as “in
vain” is “Shuv” - 
(“emptiness”,
“vanity”, “emptiness of speech”,
“lying”), while “not” is “Lo” - 
meaning
“never”, and the word “taketh” or
“take” is “Nasa” - 
–
“to take”, “take away”.
Thus we are really told to never take the Sanctified Name away, whilst “in vain” really speaks of lying and as described above, but it also related to “swearing falsely”. How do we know this, the following confirms this.
“And
ye shall not swear by My name falsely, so that thou profane the
name of thy God: I am ”
Therefore we should know the Sanctified Name of Our Creator, just as He gave it to us, and we should be able to use it only in our prayers (Davening) and in praise.
But you may ask “But how do we pronounce it correctly?” It is not very difficult for like so much in Ivrit, there is nothing in the Tanakh for nothing. It is the same with the most precious Name!
WE should already know the shorter version of
the blessed name, for Hallu’Yah, gives us that it is -
“Yah” blessed be His Sanctified Name, and we
also know that - “Yah” is included in the
names of our prophets in the Tanakh, etc for their names have
precise meanings for a purpose!
We should understand that YHVH is a verbal form
of the root “hvh,” which is an older variant of
the root “hava” which means, “to be,
shall be, to exist.” As this is in the future tense, it
therefore means “He that causes to be, He brings into
existence.”
If we choose the vowels of “hava”
- “to be” and transpose them on -
YHVH, you will find that the Sanctified Name of Elohim
actually becomes YaH’VaH
(the Eastern European Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation).
Although, the letter “V” may also be pronounced
as a soft “W” thus the precious Name would be -
“YaH’WaH”
(the Middle Eastern Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation). Thus
the pronunciation of the Elohim’s blessed Name can either be
“YaHVaH” or “YaHWaH”, blessed
be His most Sanctified Name! And I know that both would be
pleasing to our Elohim!
These are the declensions of the root “hava.” Hava is a primitive root meaning to “breathe” – “to be” (in the sense of existence). “Avah” means, to “wish for,” “covet,” (greatly) “desire,” be “desirous,” to “long” (after). “Hayah” means, “to exist,” i.e. “be” or “become” and “come to pass.”
I am aware that this study has a great deal in it, but remember that the Sanctified Name of our Elohim is a “Memorial to all Generations” and it should thus be mentioned, but do note, it is not for regular speech, but it can only be used under the right circumstances, such as during our prayers, when reading the Tanakh and in our private quiet prayers. Thus we must never use it in vain! In the correct circumstances it is 100% in compliance with the Torah!
For those who have a yearning to learn more about the Torah and grow in being a good and faithful Jew, there are many valuable studies on Hebraic Studies, and you are welcome to email me.
And remember our motto seen on the logo at the
top of this page: “The More Torah, the More Life”,
for Elohim, blessed be His Sanctified Name,
is the one who gave us our Life!”
Rabbi
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