Yehonathan

The Garden

The LORD allowed me to undertake an amazing return journey through the beautiful scenery of this week's Torah portion! It was like going on a treasure hunt, and I found many sparkling diamonds on the way! I'd like to try and share it with you!

    It started with the second aliyah: Devarim 21 v 22-23:

"If someone has committed a capital crime and put to death, then hung on a tree, his body is not to remain all night on the tree, but you must bury him the same day, because a person who has been hanged has been cursed by God - so that you will not defile your land."

    My first and immediate thought: "Hung on a tree, cursed by God - Yeshua!"

    This took me to Matthew 27:1-10, especially v 9 & 10:

 V 1-2 - "Early in the morning, all the head cohanim and elders met to plan how to bring about Yeshua's death. Then they put him in chains, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor."

    A note here that at this time, the Priesthood was run by the Saducees who were puppets of Rome.

    V 3-5 - "When Y'hudah (Judas), who had betrayed him, saw that Yeshua had been condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the head cohanim and elders, saying, "I sinned in betraying an innocent man to death."

    "What is that to us?" they answered. "That's your problem."

Hurling the pieces of silver into the sanctuary, he left; then he went off and hanged himself."

    A note here: 1. Notice the discompassionate attitude of the cohanim and elders. They didn't give a hoot about killing an innocent man, as long as their positions of power remained intact. This is not at all what God had in mind when He installed the priesthood.

    2. Judas hanged himself. Our base Scripture in Deuteronomy, above, says anyone hanged is cursed by God. Yeshua mentions this in Matthew 26:24 by saying: "The Son of Man will die just as the Tanakh says he will; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for him had he never been born!"

    V 6 - "The head cohanim took the silver coins and said, "It is prohibited to put this into the Temple treasury, because it is blood money."

    Note: See how the corrupt cohanim set so much store by not putting the blood money in the Temple treasury, but didn't give a hoot about putting an innocent man to death. This attitude was very prevalent in the 1st century. There is a record of two cohanim who were racing to be the one to empty the ashes from the altar. They were just about neck and neck and one of them then stabbed the other in the back (with the sacrificial knife) just so he could be the one to do the task! To top that, the father of the stabbed cohanim came by just then and looked at his gasping, dying son and said:

    

    "Quick! He's still alive! Take the knife out of his back before he dies so that it doesn't become defiled!" (Death defiles anything it comes into contact with and the knife would have been unusable until evening).

    V 9-10 - "Then what Z'kharyah the prophet spoke was fulfilled, 'And they took the thirty silver coins, which was the price the people of Israel had agreed to pay for him, and used them to buy the potter's field, just as the LORD had directed me'."     

    The underlined portion of Scripture above is from Zechariah 11:12-13, which says:

    "...So they weighed out my wages, thirty silver shekels. Concering that 'princely sum' at which they valued me, ADONAI said, 'Throw it into the treasury!' So I took the thirty silver shekels and threw them ino the treasury in the house of ADONAI."

    That was Chapter 26. Moving on to Chapter 27 & 28, we encounter the story of Yeshua's death and resurrection. Having read it through, it was incredible. I won't type out the two chapters here, but I really do recommend reading them through again. Just to mention a couple of highlights:

    Adam was placed in a garden (The Garden) - Genesis 2:8. Yeshua was buried and resurrected in a garden - John 20:15. Adam is called the gardener and so is Yeshua. The Matthew rendition of the two Miryams looking for Yeshua in chapter 28, is retold with greater detail in John 20. It's so beautiful that I'm going to include v 11-17 here:

    "But Miryam stood outside (the tomb of Yeshua) crying. As she cried, she bent down, peered into the tomb, and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Yeshua had been, one at the head and one at the feet. 'Why are you crying?' they asked her. 'They took my Lord,' she said to them, 'and I don't know where they have put him.'

    As she said this, she turned around and saw Yeshua standing there, but she didn't know it was he. Yeshua said to her, 'Lady, why are you crying?' Whom are you looking for?' Thinking he was was the gardener, she said to him, 'Sir, if you're the one who carried him away; just tell me where you've put him; and I'll go and get him myself.'

    Yeshua said to her, 'Miryam!' Turning, she cried out to him in Hebrew, 'Rabbani'!"

    Can you imagine! The sorrow! The joy!

Look at the words in red: The Gardener. What's all this about gardens and gardeners anyway?

    Rabbi Nachman, grandson of the Ba'al Shem Tov, says: "The Tzaddiq is the Gardener of the Garden of Eden." - Zohar II, 166b.

    He continues: "Thus anyone who is close to a true Tzaddiq can experience the delight of that Garden." - Rabbi Nachman's Wisdom, #252.

    

    Some great Rabbis of our generation say that Rabbi Nachman borrowed from Yeshua!!!

    Going back to the concept of "cursed is the man who is hanged on a tree" - Yeshua was cursed by God for us, so our sins could be forgiven and we could be brought into the House of Israel.

    Galatians 3:13-14 says:

   "The Messiah redeemed us from the curse pronounced in the Torah by becoming cursed on our behalf; for the Tanakh says, 'Everyone who hangs from a stake comes under a curse'. Yeshua the Messiah did this so that in union with him the Gentiles might receive the blessing announced to Avraham, so that through trusting and being faithful, we might receive what was promised, namely, the Spirit."

    

    Again, look at the writing in red, above. It is a reference to Deuteronomy 21:22-23 - the very Scripture we began with! A return journey!

    So, we know that the Brit Chadasshah (the renewed covenant, what some call the new testament) is really all based on the Torah, discussing and expounding what God actually said to us. There is no disconnect. No new religion. No abandonent of Israel.

Shalom!