Introduction to learning Torah

hi guys welcome to all of my friends who are joining the replay and welcome to everybody who's entering the private broadcast now this is the beginning of the first private broadcast just for the people who expressed interest in the Torah class I'm hoping that there's not going to be any trolls in this room because we've hand selected that the people who are here I invited about a hundred and seventy eight people to this class and I see right now there's about thirty five here which is very nice hello to everybody hi d'Ivoire hi Amanda hi everybody I thought this is private it is Ellie G it should be private let me see it should be private as far as I can tell I set it up to be private and I invited certain people okay so I'm just giving one minute for everybody to enter the broadcast and then we're gonna start this Diane I'll try to remember I'm so bad with names I have eight kids sometimes I forget their names like between oh you thought me and you Ellie G trolls will just interrupt that's why we have a private broadcast here because in a private broadcast it's much easier to control the trolls because anyone who's a troll I just unfollowed them and it's done and hopefully it will stay to a very small minimum I doubt that any of the trolls would bother to be invited to this broadcast so it should be good Thank You Ellie gee my wife is indeed awesome she's a wonderful woman she's a wonderful wife she's a mother of eight beautiful children I think it's but private my husband was asked for a phone you can't see it okay what's enough you said English can you say thinks this is awesome it's awesome thank you JJ bird is here j-bird is one of the reasons you see this guy J Forsythe with the bird on his thing is really one of the reasons why I ended up doing this broadcast because he asked me if I do a private broadcast without trolls okay because it gets very frustrated when all of the zombie troll types come in and start talking Palestine Palestine etc etc so you we can all thank him for pushing me to do this so here's what we're gonna do I have to first explain to you like this and and first of all how is this gonna work because in periscope there's always comments flying and it's very hard for me to teach and also address all of the comments so you guys should just know that if I'm in the middle of the train of thought and you put a comment I'm probably going to miss it okay I'm probably going to miss it so in general I'll stop in between thoughts for for questions and for comments I'll try to address them I think that's the best way to do the to do the class if you guys want to chat among yourselves in between that's fine I'll probably ignore it if I happen to pick some of it up I might join in but don't please don't take it personally if I'm not able to address each and every comment as it comes so and I think that's the best way to work now what we're gonna be doing today for the next I don't know 45 minutes or so we'll see how well it goes is some background about the learning of the Torah and about why we need to learn the Torah and the nature of the Torah what is the Torah and what are we trying to gain from learning the Torah now this class is very unique this is the first time that I've ever done a class like this were most likely the majority of the people in the room are not Jewish I've taught the Torah many times to Jewish people of all levels of Education people who have a background people who don't have a background I've been able I've taught different classes in different points in my life but I've never and I've had non Jewish people joined some of my classes but I don't think I've ever taught a Torah class where the majority of people are not doing in fact it seems pretty clear to me that the majority of the people in this room are probably even Christian okay and so the Christian people in the in the room probably have studied the Bible before okay probably you've studied the Bible you might even know it very very well but you've studied it from a Christian point of view not from the original Jewish point of view which is the way that it was originally intended to be understood when it was written 3,300 years ago so it's going to be a challenge here to teach people who have studied the Torah and a English translation that doesn't always exactly match up with the original spirit of the words and to kind of do a re-education I'm not saying everyone will accept everything that I say I'm not claiming that at the end of this class any Christian people will necessarily change their religion that's not my goal but I hope that people will be able to keep an open mind and kind of clear the slate in their mind of how they understand Torah and try to see how there might be a completely different way to understand it which is the way that the Jewish people have understood it since it was given 3,300 years ago and you might find that that changes what you think you might find that it enriches what you think and you might find that you disagree and all of those are okay the important thing is that people are learning to see a different viewpoint and the Torah from what they know others here I know have never studied the Torah at all and for them this is going to be completely new okay so that is the first free lose to this class the second the second prelude to the to the class is what is the Torah now the word Torah is a flexible word it's a word that stretches to fit different situations for example the most narrow definition of the Torah the most narrow definition is five books of Moses what you call in English Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy that's the most narrow definition of the word Torah but when Jews say the word Torah they need more than that they mean also all of the books of the Tanakh okay yeah I know I can hide the chat don't worry about it I like to look at the chat when it's comfortable for me and we're not all ignore it don't worry about it okay you just you guys can still can feel free to chat amongst yourselves and it's not going to disturb me I'll I'll look at the chat when I'm in betwen I'm in the place to comment so the first five books of the Torah most narrowly is called the Torah but Jews use the word Torah also to refer to the entire body of teaching that's connected to the Torah in other words like the rabbi's tell us in the Talmud they say even when a student of Torah a serious student of Torah delves deep into the Torah and understands a new novel insight in the Torah that was never revealed before based on deducing it from the verses that is also part of the Torah that was given by God at Mount Sinai so Torah and the broadest sense means the entire body of literature like if you look behind me all the books that are behind me these books are all Torah from the Jewish way of looking at it all of the books behind me are Torah we have here books like this which are just the five books of Moses this is Torah we have the Tanakh Tanakh as an acronym for Torah and idiom to VIN the five books of Moses the nabiyeen the prophets and the two Veeam the writings like Song of Songs as there etc etc which are not from the prophets but they're from the writings Psalms okay those are all writings and those three things Torah Nevi'im to them who makes up the Hebrew Bible the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible which is basically what Christians call the Old Testament but in a broader sense the Talmud and all of the oral traditions are also called part of the Torah and the code of Jewish law which codifies the conclusions of the rabbi's and the Talmud and regards to how Jewish people have to behave it's also Torah and also the mystical teachings of the Torah which we call Kabbalah are also Torah all of it is considered part of the Torah but in the most narrow sense Torah means the five books of Moses which is what we're going to be studying in this class we're not going to probably conclude all of the five books of Moses if it will take several years if we do this one or two classes per week of approximately an hour long it would take us several years to complete all of the five books of Moses at the rate that we're gonna be going but we'll get started and we'll see how it goes let's see the questions the Jewish guys I know are the best stuff themselves I love how God uses Moses are you a rabbi well as part of Torah well amaya rabbi I studied in rabbinical school and I completed my rabbinical ordination but I'm not employed as a rabbi I work as a tour guide and as a scribe I write Torah scrolls for a living and I guide tours based on the Bible and the Jewish Jewish history in Israel so that's what I do for a living I don't work as a rabbi both the written or oral were given that sunny yes we're gonna get into that now okay so before we open the Torah the book itself I want to read to you some things from my notes I have notes here actually you see this notebook is old and it's torn these notes are actually notes that I wrote for a Torah class that I taught in Santa Monica California about 13 years ago I taught a class on Torah and Santa Monica and a lot of very important people came to that class actually the one of the people came to the classes the son of the man who invented the IQ another man was a Superior Court judge in the state of California so I put a lot of work into these notes that they should that they should be understandable so I'm very glad that I still have them because it makes my preparation easier for such a for such a class someone asks how many books are in the Torah is the 24 books yes the Christians divided up some of the books into two or three that we count as one like for example what you call Ezra and Nehemiah and all of that they broke up into multiple books and there's different places where the division is different so the Jewish Old Testament even though it's all the same text as what the Jewish Tanakh you know it's all the same text is what the Christians call the Old Testament the number of books doesn't come out the same just because it's divided up differently also the Christians are the ones who added the chapter and verse numbers we Jews don't have chapter and verse numbers we have what are called parachutes so for example if you look in the original text you'll see that there are breaks in the text like this and wherever there's a break in the text that's called a parish ah or a section and the Tanakh and they're not necessarily the same as the chapter the chapter divisions or the verse divisions the Christians use just as a convention to make it easy to refer to chapter and verse in the way that the majority of the world is used to so the Jewish Tanakh do have the chapter and verse Oh guys that's my daughter gula my wife my wife Nikko had to go to visit a friend in the hospital who just had a baby so I may have to step out to go deal with the baby at some time because I'm the only one dealing with her unless one of my older kids takes care of it okay guys so now we do have the chapter in verse in our Bible but we don't consider to have any significance we just use it as a reference point when necessary it's a Christian thing made by Christian monks in the Middle Ages before that it didn't exist do Sul mezuzahs yes I have a website called mezuzah store calm and you can see my mezuzahs that I saw there this is a store calm so now regarding the learning of the Torah and I think you can watch the replay anyone who was invited to this I think you could watch the replay ok first of all anyone who has questions about Christianity like do I believe in Christ or anything like that it's not for this class those I answer those questions all the time on my regular scopes and I'll be happy to answer them then but it's not for this class this class is to study the Torah the way the originally was meant to be understood which is the Jewish way okay it's the Jewish way is the original way it's if you're Christian you believe in Jesus then the way Jesus understood the Torah is the way I'm gonna teach it to you I believe okay and then whatever was added onto it later that's up to you to decide whether you believe it or not I don't believe it but it's up to you to decide whether you believe it or not okay so now what is the taurah the taurah the word taurah means teaching the word taurah means teaching it comes from the hebrew word hora which means teaching some words that are related to the word torah are the word hora hora means a parent and the job of a parent is to educate and raise the children another word that's related to the word Torah in Hebrew is the word Mora which Mora means teacher a teacher in Hebrew is a Mora or if she's a female teacher she's more rough and so the word Torah is etymologically related to the words for a parent and teacher the Torah is a teaching it's not a history book it's not a a book to be used to tell the future or anything like that it's a book that teaches us how to live our lives primarily it's a book that teaches the Jewish people how to live their lives but there are also messages in the Torah this was a quran class at olympia there are also messages in the torah which are for all of the children of adam for all of the children of Noah for all of humanity and in this class I'm going to try to point those out especially more than the other lessons because I know that there's a large amount of the people in this class who are not Jewish so I'm going to try as much as possible to give the universal essence of the Torah as well the rabbi's in the Talmud tell us that the Torah is the blueprint of the world that before God created the world he wrote the Torah okay that sounds kind of counterintuitive because in the Torah it says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and then only after you finish the book of Genesis and you get to the book of Exodus you have God giving the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai starting with the Ten Commandments but the rabbi's tell us they know God already composed the Torah before he created the world and then he created the world based upon the Torah the Torah is the blueprint and the world is created to fit the Torah and therefore anything in the Torah that might seem difficult or it might seem like something that we hi Leonard a little I'm sure anything in the Torah that might seem that it's beyond our ability to keep the answer is it's not possible there's nothing in the Torah that's beyond our ability to keep because the Torah was created first and the world was created second the Torah is the blueprint of the world in fact according to the Kabbalists and I will mix some very basic Kabbalistic ideas into this class as well even though you're not allowed to teach all Kabbalistic ideas and but there are some basic Universal concepts in the Kabbalah that everyone should know and one of the Kabbalists the concepts is that the letters the hebrew letters of the Torah that string of three hundred and something thousand letters is actually a DNA kind of code of all of the universe in the letters of the Torah are encoded all of the atoms all of the planets all of the animals all of the DNA of all of the creations that exist in the world they're encoded in the letters of the Torah so that the excuse me there's a little more than 300 thousand letters in the Hebrew Torah and the five books of Moses and they are actually the blueprint the DNA of all of the universe not just this planet Earth but all the cosmos and the universe the protons the neutrons the electrons the particles the atoms etc etc they're all encoded in the Torah and therefore the it's not possible that there's something in the Torah that we can't keep for example in the book of Deuteronomy God says to Moses you might say that the Torah is difficult to keep but I am Telling You no matter how young he it's not on the other side of the sea lame or meeow meeow cassandra who will take us to the other side of the sea and bring it for us and so we can do it it's not in the heavens to say who will bring us up to the heavens and bring it to us that we could do it rather it's very close to you in your mouth and in your heart to do it the reason that it's close to in your mouth and in your heart is because we were created with the Torah as part of our DNA so it's not something that's impossible to keep the Torah is something that could be kept now if the rabbi's also tell us in the Talmud what are the books Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy the first five books of what Christians although Old Testament the rabbi's also tell us on the Talmud another prelude to learning the Torah they say that when God created the world he made a condition with the creation he made a creation a condition with the creation the condition was he said world I yes the Penta Penta to however you say that I can't pronounce that word the Pentateuch is the Torah God made a condition with the world he said world's heavens earth to see I'm creating you on condition the condition is that when the time comes and I reveal myself on Mount Sinai to the people of Israel if they will accept the Torah and they'll say not sevenish MA we will do it and we will hear it which is what the Jewish people said it on Sinai if they accept it upon themselves then you will continue to exist but if it will come that day on Mount Sinai when I need to reveal the Torah to the world and the people of Israel refused to accept it they say we're not interested then I'm going to return all of the creation retro actively to Tohu vivo who Lukasiak which in the beginning it says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was told by Volvo Volusia which means emptiness and void and darkness so God basically made a condition with the world it's the people of Israel will accept the Torah Mount Sinai then the world will exist and if not he will revert the world back to nothingness as if it never happened in other words God was saying to the world I don't need the creation of the world if the world isn't going to accept the Torah and the intermediary or the vehicle through which all of the world is able to receive the Torah is through the people of Israel through the Jewish people because the Jewish people were chosen by God what does it mean you hear all the time that Jews are the chosen people and some people think if that's like statement of privilege about the Jewish people it does not mean that we have any particular privileges necessarily what it means is that we have an extra responsibility the people of Israel being a chosen people means that God chose us as the vehicle to be a nation of priests and a holy people a light unto the nations to receive the Torah and to teach it to all of the world even though the Torah not everything in the Torah is obligatory upon all of humanity much of the things in the Torah only obligatory upon the people of Israel but it's the job of the people of Israel to keep all of the commandments of the Torah scrupulously there by showing an example of what a nation of priests and a holy people can be and that should be an inspiration and a light to all of the other nations of the world who aren't required by God necessarily to keep every one of the Commandments in the Torah to only require to keep the seven basic universal laws that you've all heard me mentioned before in my previous scopes so what that basically means is what we learn from this is that when people keep the Torah when the Jewish people as well as when the Jewish people keep the commandments of the Torah as well as non Jewish people keep the seven universal laws then the world is in order the world is stable the DNA of the world is stable and the world is stable when the people of Israel the Jewish people and also non-jewish people and the world don't keep what they're required to keep in the Torah the world is basically shaking it's not stable because the foundation of all of the creation of the universe is the Torah the Torah is the foundation of all the creation of the universe and so when people aren't keeping it it's not that the world is here and the Torah is an added layer on top of it but rather the Torah is the foundation of all the universe of all the creation when people are not holding to the Torah the world shakes in a metaphorical sense and things start to fall apart at the scenes and so when we see all kinds of disasters and and bad things and terrorism etc going on in the world we need to know first of all us those of us who are Jewish we have an extra responsibility but the whole world has responsibility to commit themselves to keeping God's word and when we commit ourselves to keeping God's world this strengthens the world and makes it healthy more by the Noahide laws yes the seven laws are sometimes called the seven laws of Noah or the seven Noahide laws but that's just like a historical term but the term that I like to use which is the truly correct term is the seven universal laws there are seven laws that God commanded starting to Adam and then he reiterated them to Noah and then at Mount Sinai when he revealed the Torah to Moses he also talked Moses that he needs to teach these seven laws to all of humanity the seven laws are do not believe in any idols only believe in the one God do not blaspheme or curse God don't murder don't steal don't torture animals don't commit prohibited sexual acts which for all of mankind that includes male homosexuality adultery and most kinds of incest and the last and seventh law is to every city County State's country needs to establish courts of law to uphold all of those other laws and to institute whatever other additional laws are necessary to govern society and a good and healthy way but all of those laws that he implements should be in the spirit of the other six laws which are the universal laws so those are the seven universal laws again don't believe in idols don't blaspheme God don't murder don't steal don't commit adultery or homosexuality or other sexual offenses don't torture animals or more exactly not to consume a a limb removed from a living animal and established courts of law that is the only thing that God demands of all of humanity the actual Torah has 613 commandments I don't know how many of you have heard of that but the Torah contains 613 commandments people have heard about the Ten Commandments probably something just fell another room people aware of the Ten Commandments right but the Ten Commandments aren't anything special that's a Christian concept we Jews don't talk about the Ten Commandments we talk about the 10 statements a Sarah Teddy Brooke the 10 statements because those are the only commandments that God verbalized in front of the people at Mount Sinai in front of millions of people they heard it directly from the ears of God and they were inscribed on stone tablets by Moses first God did it then Moses had to do it okay and yes the ponga has 613 see if that's true and so they are let's say like the ten which some up there like the cliff notes to the 613 but they're actually 613 commandments in the Torah for the Jewish people only for the people of Israel are the ten included in the seven no some of the ten are not included in the seven for example the Shabbat the Sabbath a non Jew is not obligated to keep the Sabbath only Jewish people are obligated to keep the Sabbath as it says in the Torah Lashon Reuben a Israel at the Shabbat and the people of Israel kept the Sabbath law so that the Shabbat to do this abbot leader wrote on Brit Olam for all generations is an eternal covenant OT Leo lamb it is a sign forever beany who been bnei yisrael between me in other words God and between the people of Israel the Torah says explicitly the Sabbath is only a requirement upon the people of Israel it's not a requirement on the entire world if people want to take a day of rest or whatever and spend time with their family there's nothing wrong with that but the actual Sabbath with all of its observances and all of its requirements is a special sign between God and the people of Israel so that's an example of one of the commandments which is in the Ten Commandments but not in this seven commandments Muslims also keep Friday as a holy day yes all different religions have invented all kinds of ideas Christian's keep a Sabbath on Sunday when it's anyway I don't want to get into that was made for all even before son is creation no God rested on the seventh day that's what it says it says God rested on the seventh day and we'll get to that soon when we study the first few chapters of Genesis but God didn't command anybody else to rest the first time God create commanded any human beings to rest in commemoration of his resting was at Mount Sinai with the giving of the Torah and the Ten Commandments he commanded the Jewish people to rest in commemoration of his resting and one version of the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus it says they helymus every sheet that it's a it's a commemorative the creation and at the other version it says this early it's yet mitzrayim that it's to commemorate that God took the Jewish people out of Egypt so again if the Sabbath is a commemoration of God taking us out of Egypt why would people who weren't taken out of Egypt to keep the Sabbath sunday is not the Sabbath of the Lord that's true okay so that's what I want to say about the commandments okay now about the written Torah let me just see what time it is here it's getting late I don't remember what time we started this thing okay about the written Torah and the oral torah actually before that how was the Torah revealed you know you guys all have I'm sure at your house a Bible King James Version New International Version or many other kinds of versions and it includes in it the Torah and it happens all the time that I'm scoping all the time that I'm scoping and I'll put something from the Bible and people will say to me which Bible do you read which version do you read okay which version and I I have to try not to laugh sometimes I don't succeed because in the non-jewish world the whole there's a whole argument among people which version of the Bible is the most correct which is the most accurate and the reason I have to hold myself from laughing it's kind of rude to laugh I just I should hold it back is because we read the original the original Hebrew the same exact text letter four-letter word for word that God gave on Mount Sinai that's the one that we leave not King James and not new international and nothing like that we read the original Bible that's how the Jewish people do it but how do we get this text and how do we know that this text is the correct text that's what I want to talk about for the next few minutes where did this text come from and how do we know that it's accurate so let me explain to you how this was revealed when God took the Jewish people out of Egypt and he revealed himself and on Mount Sinai to Moses first the first thing that he did is that he revealed the Ten Commandments to all of the Jewish people as one now I want you to understand what this means this isn't a normal thing there's only one religion on the face of the earth it's not based on a revelation to one person or to five or 10 people or 12 people but it's based on a revelation to an entire nation of people and that's the Jewish religion the Torah the Torah tells us the 3,300 years ago God descended on Mount Sinai while the entire nation was camped around the mountain six hundred thousand men between the age of twenty and fifty as well as children and women so we're talking about literally millions two three four million people camped around Mount Sinai and God revealed himself to the entire nation not all of the words of the Torah revealed to everybody but the Ten Commandments were revealed so to speak from God's mouth even though God doesn't have a mouth because he's not a human being but metaphorically the Torah speaks about a coming from the mouth of God so to speak in other words the people heard a voice coming from God himself I am the Lord your God who has taken you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage you shall have no other gods before me they heard these words from God's own voice and so all of the people fell on their face and they said NASA finish mom we will we will do it and we will listen to it which is a very strange response you would think the correct response is we will listen to it and then we will do it because how can you do it if you don't listen but the Jewish people answered we will do it and we will listen in other words they were saying whatever it is we're ready to do it because we heard it from the voice of God himself so even if we don't understand it yet we're ready to do it whatever it is we're gonna do it because we know that God Himself spoke to us this isn't a prophet coming to us this isn't some holy man who comes and says yes I'm the Son of God or I'm a prophet or whatever and invents a religion this is God Himself revealing to an entire nation the rabbi's tell us that the maidservants and Mount Sinai and at the splitting of the sea had revelations greater than any revelation that Isaiah had or the Ezekiel had greater revelations they had because they got the revelation from God himself each individual through no intermediary whatsoever so now imagine trying to imagine trying to fabricate such a story how would you fabricate such a story let's say for example that the Torah wasn't true god forbid let's say that the Torah was written a thousand years later in the Second Temple period some priests came and they made up this book called the Torah and they presented it to the people and they said this is God's law this is the Torah and the people look in it and they say ok let's see what does it say here well it says here that a thousand years ago my great-great-grandfather stood at Mount Sinai and heard the Torah revealed straight from the mouth of God along with the entire nation and I never heard anything about that before I never heard of that it just says it in this book so is anyone going to accept that no one's going to accept that or take it seriously be a book that says that your great great grandfather heard something that you never heard about that he heard no tradition came down so anyone who would try to fabricate a story of millions of people having a national revelation it's impossible to fabricate such a story ok it just can't be done to fabricate such a story and this is how we know that the Torah is true it's the only one revelation that God revealed himself to all of the people of Israel as one after that many prophets came Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel etc etc of the prophets they came and they added certain details to this revelation they added clarifications they added messages for that particular time or that particular place they added prophecies about what will happen in the future but if any one of those messages contradicts in the slightest way the revelation that we had at Mount Sinai it's a null and void we reject it and completely it cannot be true so for us the Jewish people the only thing that we know as an axiom it's for sure true beyond a doubt is the Torah this Torah is the text exactly the God revealed to Moses and we have no doubt that every letter and every word of it is exact and it's true in the word of Bach now we hold everything up against it everything else that someone presents to us they come some holy man comes and says God spoke to me and he told me something so we say to him okay what did he tell you so if he tells us for example that the Shabbat is no longer on Saturday it's on Sunday we say you're a heretic you're a liar and you're a false prophet and if it was the times of the temple when we had the Sanhedrin we would stone him to death and execute him for heresy because if he's telling us anything that goes against that revelation that God gave us a Mount Sinai we know for a fact that it's false that he's a false prophet it cannot possibly be true now every religion except for Judaism is based on a revelation to either an individual like Islam which is based on a revelation only to one single person named Muhammed okay only one and Christianity is based on a revelation to one individual named Jesus and to some extent also to some of his disciples let's say at Pentecost but basically not more than a few dozen people at the most have supposedly a revelation so if anything in that revelation comes and and contradicts and anything in the Torah we know it's false we don't accept it which is why we don't accept Christianity and we don't accept Islam but I'm not going to get into the details of that because as we learned the Torah you'll see where it contradicts now how do we know that the text that we have is the same text that God gave to Moses so let me explain to you how the Torah was transmitted by the Jewish people when God revealed himself to Moses at 3,300 years ago in the Sinai desert he called him into the tent of meeting at the beginning of the process and he told him and to prepare a scroll a scroll just like the Scrolls that the Jewish people have now prepare a scroll of parchment which was made out of animal skin he told him how long to make it how many pages how many columns how many lines prepare a blank scroll and that's what Moses did and then over the course of 40 years in the desert from time to time God would call Moses into the tent of meeting the tabernacle and the cloud would descend upon the tent at the time when God was revealing himself and God would dictate to Moses what to write in the Torah and so all of the Torah is dictated from the mouth of God so to speak from the voice of God down to Moses and the first Torah scribe which my job is I'm a Torah scribe I'm very proud that the first Torah scribe was my great-great uncle Moshe Moses okay and the reason I say my great-great-uncle is because my father's mother's father is a coin which means that Aaron the brother of Moses is my great-great-great grandfather so Moses is like my great uncle so I'm very proud to have the same job as my great uncle Moses who was the first Torah scribe who transcribed the Torah dictated from the voice of God he transcribed it into the scroll which he prepared Levites Moses the uncle yes that is the coolest thing ever it is very cool when I when we read about Aaron in the Torah with my children I say Aaron our grandfather asaba Aaron I tell them our grandfather Aaron and I'm also named Aaron after my great great great great grandfather so now that's how the first Torah scroll was was created the first Torah scroll was dictated from the mouth of God to Moses letter for letter for letter word for word space for space and it's not just the text that is exactly it's also the spaces in between where the breaks are in the text like I showed you whenever you look at a text of the Hebrew Bible there are brakes and the brakes are also exact and very important now from that time all of the Torah scrolls that were ever written were copied from another tourist quote so for example people took Moses his Torah scroll and they put it down next to them and they took another set of parchment and they copied a Torah scroll and then they compared it word for word letter for letter to make sure that it's accurate now the Jewish law is that if even one letter is wrong a single letter a single vowel is wrong or missing or misspelled the Torah scroll is invalid and it can't be used it can't be read from until it's corrected so therefore that's how we maintain the integrity of the text of the Torah the way we maintain the integrity of the text of the Torah is by making sure that we copied the Torah exactly now today let's say for example every Sabbath we read the Torah in the synagogue guys if anyone gets frozen it usually helps to go out of the broadcast and go back in and then it will unfreeze for you that's a little advice for periscope so now the way that we read the Torah in the synagogue is that we take out the scroll and there's a reader who reads from the Torah and let's say at some point in the reading someone notices that there's a mistake there's a letter missing or even a letter that's cracked or broken or any little flaw in the Torah so we immediately close up the scroll tie it on the outside with a special type to show that it's invalid and we put it aside and it's not read from again until it's corrected if one letter is cracked or one letter is missing or misshaped we can't read from it and because that no two letters can touch each other no letter can be misshaped in any way no letter can be written in a way that it might be mistaken for another letter and so because of that the Jewish people have been able to keep the integrity of the text of the Torah for 3,300 years going all the way back to Moses now I will tell you something if you take a Torah scroll from Jews and Russia and a Torah scroll from Jews in England and a Torah scroll from Jews in America and a Torah scroll from Jews and Yemen and I'm not talking about now that we can all communicate on the phone and the computer and Skype and all of that I'm talking about if you would have done this 100 years ago 200 years ago before of modern communications when Jews and Yemen had no contact with Jews in any other part of the world and you compare all the Torah scrolls together you have the exact same text letter four-letter word for word space for space even if the spaces are different the Torah scrolls invalid so that all of the Jewish people have the exact same text of the Torah no every two Torah scrolls are identical in text and if one is found to have any deviation it immediately has to be put aside and it can't be used until it's repaired and fixed this is how the Jewish people have been able to maintain the integrity of the text of the Torah so when we read the original Hebrew Torah we're not reading someone's translation or someone's interpretation or someone's version of it there's no room for error it's exact it is the Torah and it's only because we Jewish people have preserved it that way that you those of you who are not Jewish have it okay that's how you have it it's because of the fact that the Jewish people preserved it in this way I'm skipping over a lot of notes here because the time is getting late and I want to finish up in the next 10-15 minutes first of all does anyone have any questions let's take a break and take some questions for anyone who might have that's what's kept us together for thousands of years that's right as Jewish people it's from the Torah amazing how we can learn to tour over periscope I really believe the periscope is a part of the process of the Messianic era because in order for the Messiah to come there has to be in the world the tools prepared that allow all of mankind to connect together and to hear the truth because it says that the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the water covers the sea that's one of the prophecies about the Messiah so how can the world be full the knowledge of God if there's not a way for people to spread it around and to me the fact that we can go on periscope and teach live the true Torah teachings to dozens of people hundreds of people and I believe that this will grow to thousands of people at some point is certainly one of the stages in the process and I personally feel very honored that as far as I can tell this is the first Torah class ever on periscope done by an Orthodox Jew I heard you say everywhere earlier thank you can you show us the scroll is it only cinema I don't have a complete scroll here I have a scroll that I'm working on writing and every now and then I scope while I'm writing and he will come to Messiah will be surprising you see yeah yeah anyways you guys will be surprised do we know when the Messiah will come exactly nobody knows exactly when the Messiah will come there's two times the Messiah could come there's a predestined time that god only knows and nobody else knows that no matter what happens he will come whether we're ready or not here I come but at any point in history there will be there is one Jew descended from King David who's alive in the world who is fit to be the Messiah who has the soul of the Messiah in him and every generation and if at any point the world is ready if we repent and we get ourselves in the right order at any point when we tip the scale to the right side God will reveal that individual as the Messiah so we believe that in every generation there is one person who is fit to be the Messiah and we believe that there's such a person alive right now even though I have no idea who it is and we hope that he will come immediately but there's no doubt that we're coming close to the deadline when it must come no matter what because I to the establishment reestablishment of the State of Israel after the gathering of Jews from all the four corners of the earth and so many other prophecies that are coming true there's no doubt that we're very close to the final rebuilding of the temple and the final time of the coming of the Messiah now I have to go grab a book don't leave me I need to grab another book to show you something and now you guys get to see that my shirt is on clap where is my tea kun book I think I took it to my office I'll be right back don't go away guys I'm right here okay here we are I lost two or three people okay now how does the Torah scroll look I have here a book of the Torah it has two columns one column is without vowels this column is exactly how it looks inside the Torah scroll and one column is with vowels now what does that mean my wife is teaching a Hebrew class so you guys are gonna learn that the Hebrew language is really only made up of consonants and then their vow marks below the letters and sometimes above the letters because how to connect the consonants together it's very different than the Latin alphabet that has the vowels when the consonants all in one line in the Hebrew language there's only consonants in the original Hebrew banana exactly and vowels are marks that are added around the letters to help you to read okay I need the Hebrew class so follow my wife at learn Hebrew TV learn Hebrew TV so for example this is a book that we use to prepare for reading the Torah in the synagogue someone who has to be the public Torah reader he'll use this book so what he'll do is this is with the valves to make sure he's reading it correctly but this is how he's gonna have to read it this is how he's gonna have to read it in synagogue okay so the Torah that God gave Moses looked like this they had no vowels in it now what does that mean what does it mean that the Torah had no valence and this is a preface to the next concept that I want to speak about which is the concept of the oral torah Aaron can barely hold it yes it's very good see guys so anyways I want to speak to you about the written Torah and the oral torah and here's a place where christians get confused they say the many Christians think that the written Torah was given by God and the Oral Torah was made up by the rabbis but I'm going to prove to you that if that's the case you have no Bible and you have no Christianity there cannot be a Bible there cannot be Kishan without the Oral Torah and let me explain to you why from the time that God gave the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago until the 6th century nobody ever put vowels in the Torah the Torah was written only with consonants the vowels were invented in the city of Tiberias not in bed sorry let me clarify the symbols for the vowels were made up by a school of rabbis in Tiberias in the 6th century Tiberias Israel in the 6th century and they invented a system of symbols to record what is the correct pronunciation of all the words in the Torah but before that the correct pronunciation was memorized by Jews by heart in other words Moses gave the Torah scroll and he read it for the people and they heard how he pronounced the words and then the people remembered it and they taught it to their children and they passed on four thousand four from 3300 BCE from thirty three hundred years ago to 6 1300 BCE till six CES we're talking about almost two thousand years nineteen hundred years the Jewish people transmitted as part of the oral torah how you've allies the text and how you pronounce the text okay so what does that mean it means that when you read the Torah you cannot even read the Torah without the without the Oral Torah you can't read the written Torah without the Oral Torah let me give you an example I'm gonna open up to Genesis chapter one right from the beginning and it says like this it says Parrish eats bara Elohim etosha my veterans in the beginning God created heaven under the harlots height:auto Vogel LaHood chef al Panetta home and the earth was empty and void and darkness upon the face of the deep and it goes on and then the next thing says by Omer Elohim he he or mahi or and God said let there be light and there was light and then it says like this it says V our Elohim at the or ki Tov sorry we are Elohim at the or ki Tov God saw the light that it was good we have been Elohim banner or Obon Akasha and gods separated between the light and the darkness so let me explain to you something the word for God saw which is here by our Elohim at the or ki Tov God saw the light that it is good the only way that we know how to read the word the yard he saw is because the vowels were preserved as part of the old tradition of the Jewish people as part of the Oral Torah if there are no vowels in there you could read that word in several different ways you could read it by year by year na and god feared the lights God feared the lights because it was good maybe it means and God feared the light because it was good how do you know that it means and God saw the light it could be pronounced either way if you only have the consonants and the written Torah only has the consonant the vowel marks are part of the oral torah or the next verse by hierra viable carry Omaha and there was evening and there was morning day one that could be read if you don't have the vowels it can be read ye are EV ie Bakar Yamaha there was mixed animals and cows on the first day okay you could read every word in every verse in the Torah differently without the vowels so without the vowels the written Torah is opened to many different kinds of versions and many different kinds of translations now I quote a few a couple of things that might sound absurd to you obviously if you have to choose between it was evening and it was morning or there were mixed animals and there were cows you understand which one the Torah means but it's not always that simple there are a lot of nuances we're depending how you value eyes something it could be future tense past tense present tense it could be referring to this person or that person and it's all in the balance and when you open your King James Bible and look in the introduction to the Old Testament it will say translate it from the master edit text what does that mean translate from the master etic text that means the master etic text means the original Hebrew text of the Bible with the vowels the way they were recorded in Tiberias in the 6th century by the Jewish grammar fishin's okay and those vowels are part of the oral torah so without the oral torah you don't have a written Torah because the written Torah without the oral torah is only consonants with no vowels you have no written Torah without the oral torah that's number one as far as the Oral Torah Torah is concerned every time you read your written Bible you're reading also you're you're reading it according to the tradition that the Jewish people preserved orally of how to value eyes the text that's number one number two anyone who studies the Bible will understand that it's full of statements that can't possibly be interpreted without the Oral Torah my favorite example is in Deuteronomy chapter 12 verse 21 yes their space is also Deuteronomy chapter 12 verse 21 says as follows this is just an obvious example but there are hundreds of examples like this chapter 12 verse 21 it says like this it's referring to eating meat you know originally when the Jewish people are brought out of Egypt the original commandment was that they could only eat meat if it was part of the sacrificial Rite in the temple certain sacrifices that you brought in the temple you get to take home a portion of the meat and celebrate with your family and eat it with wine while you drink wine and celebrate and all the good that God has blessed you but just to go and slaughter an animal I need to meet wasn't permitted to Jews initially after the giving of the Torah so in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 12 God says that once the Jewish people enter the land of Israel now it will be permitted for them to slaughter animals and eat the meat just because they want to eat they don't have to necessarily bring it to the temple or to the tabernacle they can eat meat whatever they want and the way that God says it is like this when the Lord your God will broaden your boundary as he spoke to you and you say I would eat I would like to eat meat for you will have desire to eat me to your heart's entire desire to your hearts and tired desire may you eat meat and Hebrew hiearchy flesh a maloca feta when God will expand your boundary kasher deep airlock as he has promised to you the MARTA you will say to yourself baklava sir I want to eat meat kita vana Shafa because my soul desires it the whole bizarre to eat meat the whole about now chakra - how bizarre whenever you want to eat meat its permitted to you here have Makaha macomb even though the place in other words the temple or the tabernacle may be far from you I assure you Hara dhaniya - a solution the place that God will choose to rest his name upon the temple it may be far away from you visible Tommy Barker ha but you can slaughter your cows on its own f ha your sheep Ashur Netanya shimano castle aha which the Lord your God has given to you kasher CGT huh in the fashion that I have told you that I have commanded you and the fashion that I have commanded you so in chapter 12 verse 21 of Deuteronomy God says when you want to slaughter the animals just make sure that you do it in the fashion that I have commanded you what fashion is that if you search through all of the written Torah there's no place where God commands the fashion of how the slaughter has to take place so what we see here is that God commanded something to the Jewish people or to Moses that is not recorded in the Torah he commanded the manner of kosher slaughter which basically means you have to have a knife which is perfectly sharp without any kind of nicks or blemishes and that you must slaughter the animal at the neck and one clean swipe so that it feels no pain and you must sever both I'm not an expert in kosher slaughter but there's two things that you have to slaughter in order to make sure that you cut off the feeling of the animal immediately and that the blood continues to go out so that the blood is released from the animal exactly to let the meat bleed out and so here God says when you do this when you slaughter animals you must do it in the manner that I have commanded you and the manner that I commanded you but look through the Bible God doesn't command anywhere how to slaughter animals and so this is one example of a place where the Torah actually references the Oral Torah the written Torah references that there are things that God had commanded to Moses which are not which are not in the written Torah another example obvious example is where God commands you shall inscribe them as a sign on your hand and they shall serve as frontlets between your eyes which it's a meaningless verse without the oral torah the oral torah records a tradition going back to moses if this is referring to what we call today to fill in which are little leather boxes that have scrolls written inside of them and so on and so forth so what you need to understand is that when God gave the written Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai he didn't Jess so how do you know how to kill animals so that's what I'm going to tell you every time God why did it take 40 years for God to reveal the Torah to Moses if all he was revealing is this one five books of Moses he could have revealed it in the course of a week or two weeks why did he need 40 years he calls Moses in teaches him a little bit and then goes away the next day teaches a little bit more and the answer is it wasn't the transcribing of the books I write every year to Torah scrolls so I'm 40 years I could have written 80 Torah scrolls it wasn't just that God was teaching Moses the writing of the actual words for 40 years he would teach him a section he would transcribe it and then Moses would spend the rest of the day with God hearing the interpretation of it God would explain to him all the details of exactly what it means so when God said you can slaughter me whenever you want once you go into the land then he spent several days with Moses explained to him all of the laws of kosher slaughter all of the mystical intentions behind kosher slaughter and everything that he needs to know so that he could pass this tradition on from generation to generation of exactly how kosher slaughter is done and we Jews to this day slaughter the animals exactly in the fashion that God explained to Moses after he hadn't transcribed the words I just read to you God spent time explaining the details of this to Moses and that's called the Oral Torah and so - with each and every commandment when God commands us to keep the Sabbath it's not just a day of rest it has exact ramifications exact details of how you go about keeping the Sabbath what is permitted what's prohibited as well as the spiritual meaning behind it which is layer upon layer upon layer of spiritual meaning also table channels cannot be Ethan well that's recorded actually in the written Torah so no but birds yes the birds not all of them are listed in the written Torah and that's a tradition indeed it's part of the oral torah which birds are permitted to be ethan which ones are not everyone is mesmerized I don't know if they're mesmerized or if they cut out or what certain animals I solution me okay I don't care what I say or what you say I only care what God says so God says in the Torah which animals we can eat and which animals we cannot eat so what you need to understand is the written Torah without the Oral Torah is a meaningless book it's literally a meaningless book the written Torah is only useful if you study the oral torah and then you use the written Torah as a reference point as an anchor to sum up all of the layer upon layer of meaning in the oral torah now for you Christians I'm not going to do this very much in this class but just look in your New Testament I don't remember the chapter and verse the last time I opened a New Testament was several years ago but Jesus actually orders his disciples and he says do everything that the Pharisees tell you don't do what they do but do everything that they tell you because Jesus criticized the the rabbis and the Pharisees as often being hypocrites and there was some truth to that there was a lot of hypocrisy going on in his time among these horas scholars and the Talmud also records that hypocrisy that was going on and criticizes it equally if not more but he says everything that they teach you you should do because even he understood that the oral torah is obligatory and there without the oral torah without the teachings of the rabbis there is no written Torah okay so anyone who understands a version of Christianity that basically feels that the oral torah is made up by the rabbis or something like that is going against jesus's own words just so you know where the Dead Sea Scrolls part of the original oral torah okay so now that's the summary that I wanted to do with you guys before I start the reading of the book and I think that I'm gonna leave the actually reading of the book for the next class because it's gone on now for quite some time and it's a long replay for people to catch up on for the people who maybe miss the live broadcast but I'm gonna take questions now on everything that I talked which I hope gives you guys a good background for what the Torah is and how we Jewish people perceive the Torah okay which might be a little bit different than how non-jewish people perceive the Torah or even Jewish people who didn't get the proper education thank you very much bless you this has been awesome thank you thank you guys all for listening we had 40 50 people through over an hour of content which is really superb I used to teach classes in California before I moved to Israel and I don't think I ever had more than 35 people in the room so here we have 4050 people sitting for over an hour and I'm sure there'll be more people watching the replay the next class will be with God's help sometime this week probably let's see - it will not be Tuesday night it may be Wednesday night or Thursday night okay either Wednesday night or Thursday night my time and of course if you're not able to come in the live broadcast the replay will be archived for 24 hours so you'll be able to get that I will consider putting these up on YouTube we'll see it's a little bit of a extra work but perhaps a awesome class thank you I'm gonna try to save it what else did I want to tell you guys so if you know anybody who likes this kind of class who you think wants to be here make sure they get on periscope if they're not on periscope and they should follow me and then they should tweet me or else come into one of my other scopes that's public and just write Torah there and I'll follow them so they get the invite and that's the best way to get as many people as possible into the class went to a Christian school I taught about the Roman tour very good not all Christian schools too stop but I'm glad that they taught you that they're alright guys if nobody has any more questions I'm gonna sign up and wish you guys Shalom from Israel peace and blessing to all of you have a good rest of your weekend and I hope to see you all back soon sometime this week bye

Channel: Aaron Shaffier Israel Tours

Views: 7,777

Rating: 4.7821784 out of 5

Keywords: Torah (Religious Text), Religion (TV Genre), Judaism (Religion), Israel (Country), Torah Study (Quotation Subject)

Id: vUaUKY-STt8

Length: 70min 19sec (4219 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 15 2015