Bible School

These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.  And you shall repeat them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.  Deuteronomy 6:6-7  NASB Repeat them diligently – Whether you…

Real Education

To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding,  Proverbs 1:2  NASB Instruction – Hebrew education?  Well, let’s see.  Rabbi Ishmael’s answer to the question of Ben Damah (Menachoth 99b): “May one such as I who have studied the whole of the Torah learn Greek wisdom?—He thereupon read to him the following verse, ‘This book…

Re-education

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,   Titus 2:11-12  NASB Instructing – Everything you need to know about life you learn in kindergarten.  It seems that God thinks that’s true too.  The verb used here is…

Miss-education

“One shall not sell a thing to a Gentile,” The Babylonian Talmud, Regulations Regarding Transfer on Shabbat Gentile – We have often noticed that paradigms determine interpretation.  Investigation is governed by what we expect to find.  It is never neutral.  Even in hard science, the theory defines the category of discovery, and as the history…

Educational Nonsense

Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Psalm 34:11 ESV Teach – lamad, the Hebrew verb translated “teach” or “learn,” includes the idea of training, not merely verbal or written transfer of information. In Hebrew, the action implicit in the instruction is just as important as the…

Bank Accounts

The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 2 Timothy 2:2 NASB Entrust – How do rabbis educate? They choose students and teach the students to copy them. For what purpose? Not for creating a storehouse…

The Purpose of Knowing (1)

I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.  Psalm 119:75  NASB Your judgments – I wonder if we can confidently echo David’s poetry.  Do we really know that the judgments of the Lord are righteous, every one of them?  The Hebrew is ki-tsedeq (righteous, just, justice,…

The Cure and the Warning

From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength
because of Your adversaries,
to make the enemy and the revengeful cease.  Psalm 8:2  NASB Established strength – According to Rabbi Munk, this verse teaches “that Israel’s protection from harm depends on the Torah study of its innocent children.”[1]  Don’t dismiss his comment too quickly. …

The Four Spiritual Stages (4)

Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage.  I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.  Then I will take you for My people, and I…

Where Do I Look?

“It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’”  Deuteronomy 30:12  NASB Not in heaven – Have you considered the implications of Moses’ observation about God’s revelation?  Moses is delivering Torah to…