"Identity and the One Torah Movement"

An All-Day Seminar • November 14, 2010
Seminar Speaker – Tim Hegg

	Where: Westin Atlanta Airport Hotel When: Sunday, Nov 14, 2010 Cost: Free (donations to help with expenses will be accepted) Time: 8:30am – 9:30pm Click here for More Information & to Register. (There is also a link on the home page of TorahResource.)
	We are anticipating a great time together at the Atlanta Seminar. Not only will we have the whole day to study and be encouraged in our faith, but it will be an opportunity to meet and fellowship with others of like faith and perspective. 220 people have already registered, and we will be limited to 250 participants for the Seminar. So if you are considering attending the Seminar, please register as soon as possible. When we reach the 250 number, registrations will have to be closed. Even though it is not the same as "being there," we will be video recording the entire day and producing the Seminar on DVD. We will hope to have the recorded Seminar available in January, 2011. We also have had a number of requests to host a similar Seminar in other cities. Currently we are considering a Seminar in southern California, in Colorado, as well as in Canada. If you would like to host a future TorahResource Seminar in your area, please contact Caleb: [chegg (at) torahresource.com] or call him at 800-508-3566. For those of you who have registered for the Atlanta Seminar, we will be sending you further information and updates via email in the near future.
Rob Vanhoff Some of you are aquainted with Rob Vanhoff, who, in 2007, was the teacher of our Distant Learning Class, "An Introduction to Rabbinic Literature." I'm very happy to have Rob as a contributor of materials and as a teacher at TorahResource. As HaShem enables us, we hope to utilize Rob's skills and academic excellence more and more at TorahResource. Here's a little background on Rob: Rob graduated magna cum laude from the University of Washington in 2003 with a B.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization and a minor in Music. In addition to concentrating on the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation in Jewish and Christian traditions, he studied the Hebrew (Biblical, Rabbinic, Modern), Aramaic (Biblical, Targumic, Syriac), Greek, and Akkadian languages. Rob received a number of scholarships, including the Sandler/Shurman Scholarship in Jewish Studies and a Mary Gates Fellowship which funded a year of research on inscriptions from ancient Israel. In 2005 he completed an M.A. in Comparative Religion, for which he held several Teaching Assistantships for Introduction to the New Testament, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, and Biblical Hebrew. He has taught many courses for a large Reform Jewish community, including Rabbinic Hebrew, Stories of the Rabbis, Women in the Bible, and World Religions. Rob was invited to UCLA to deliver a paper highlighting aspects of his work on the rabbinic exegesis of Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). He is also a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and delivered a paper on the Hebrew text of Leviticus at the Pacific Northwest regional SBL conference in April, 2009. He and his wife Jenny have two children. I have asked Rob to share some of his current studies on the Shema (Deut 6:4–9), especially some insights from the Targumim (the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible made in the post-exilic period). We will be featuring Rob's articles on the Shema in the upcoming issues of the TorahResource Newsletter. If you have questions about Rob's article on the Shema, or want to give him comments about his article, you may contact him at: robvanhoff(at)gmail.com.

Studies on the Shema, pt. 1 • Rob Vanhoff
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Certainly all of us relish the story in Mark 12 of the scribe who approaches Yeshua, asking for the “first commandment in the Torah.” The first commandment – ha-mitzvah ha-rishonah.  Matthew 22 reads, “the first and great commandment.”  There are other differences here as well, but I’m not now going to lay the texts of these two Gospels side by side for comparison, though such a venture would certainly bear fruit and insight for the effort.  Rather, I want to make a few simple observations that in my opinion are worthy of our reflection; observations that, as far as I know, have gone unnoticed among the Torah-pursuant talmidim of our Master, the King Messiah Yeshua.
 
In Mark’s telling, Yeshua’s response to the scribe’s inquiry begins, “Hear, O Israel…”  Many will right away recognize that this of course is the “Shema,” named such after the first Hebrew word of the ancient and famous prayer.  “Shema!” means, quite simply, “Hear!”  In grammatical terms, we say this is a “qal” 2nd person singular imperative of the root shin-mem-ayin, a verb meaning “to hear.”  Now let me repeat something that might have slipped by you just now: it’s an imperative.  In Hebrew, we say “z’man tzivui,” or simply, “command.”  Did you catch that?  The word “Shema” in Deuteronomy 6:4 is a command! 
 
So what?  Wouldn’t we all agree that the “greatest commandment in the Torah” is “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, etc…”?  Perhaps. But there is more we need to understand about this.  What I would like to suggest is that the real command here is indicated clearly by Hebrew grammar.  That command is “Shema!” or, “Hear!” or even, “Listen!”
 
Fine.  So what does this have to do with the Targumim?  Hasn’t all this been a discussion of nuances of Hebrew?  Well, an ancient manuscript of Targum Onkelos uses an interesting - and very meaningful - word to translate the command, “Shema!”  What word?  “Qabbel!”  As a matter of fact, over half of the 80-some occurrences of the root shin-mem-ayin in Deuteronomy are translated into Aramaic with the root qof-bet-lamed, meaning “to receive, accept.”  Most people will recognize this root behind the word qabbalah (some transliterate it kabbalah), referring to the Jewish mystical tradition.  Actually, in the most ancient rabbinic texts the word qabbalah simply means “that which has been received,” or “received tradition.”  So the Targum is using the root qof-bet-lamed to mean “receive”—it is not delving into the much later mystical traditions expressed in a work like the Zohar.
 
Quite practically, however, that the root qof-bet-lamed means “to receive” has a lot of significance.  Just think of the use of the verb “to receive” in these passages:  “Receive the Holy Spirit (as the Father sent Me, so I send you)...” (John 20); “As you have received the Lord Messiah Yeshua, so walk in Him.” (Colossians 2); “For I delivered unto you that which I also received…” (1 Corinthians 15).  The list goes on.  The main point here is the foundational truth that you cannot give what you do not have.  How much more when we are talking about “loving God with all our heart…”?  At the end of the powerful story of debt-forgiveness in Luke 7, Yeshua asks his host, “Which of them will love him most?” Shimon answers, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”  In other words, our capacity to love God is limited by what we have first received from Him.  “We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)  
 
Back to the first commandment in the Torah: Yes, we are commanded to love God, and this is of utmost importance. But how can we?  We must first adopt the understanding of the ancient Targumist, who rendered the Hebrew word “Shema” with “Qabbel”: “Receive, O Israel! The LORD our God the LORD is One.”  Only after we have received Him in His complete Unity, in His own self-disclosure through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Yeshua, God-in-the-flesh, can we respond with the second part of that first and great commandment, “and you will love the LORD your God with all your heart…”  For you cannot give what you do not have. And, “what do you have that you did not receive?”
 
(to be continued…)