Simple Conversations.

Dog.

Cat.

Street.

Where is the bathroom?

How much is this?

I want . . .

I'm hungry/thirsty/tired.

What is your name?  My name is . . .

These are common words. In fact, if one were to take a class in Spanish, French, or German, you'd learn them quickly.

Could you imagine if you couldn't?  If you took a semester of Spanish, and someone walked up to you and asked you to say something in Spanish, and you were unable to?  Maybe quote something from a book in Spanish, but you couldn't yourself create a sentence in Spanish?

That student would be deemed a failure.  Clearly he must have passed with a D-, if he passed at all.

And yet, go to a seminary, find someone in a Greek or Hebrew class, and ask them to say something in their respective language.

  If they manage to, it will either be a) a quote from the Bible (likely either Genesis 1:1 or 1 John 1:1), b) a stammered sentence that has no meaning (like βλέπω τον καρπον του ανθρώπου "I see the fruit of the man") or c) a legitimate, albeit unsophisticated sentence.  The only person capable of option C is the person who got the highest grade in the class.

Congrats, Greek student.  *slow clap*

There must be a better way.  Simple conversation should be a focus of Biblical language teaching.  Why is it that a high school class can require papers written in German, while Master's level Hebrew requires only that you know it is a Niphal Perfect First Person Singular verb and it's meaning?  That should be obvious?  If I was teaching ESL, I wouldn't stop at them knowing that what kind of verb a word is.  They need to know more.  They need to know how that word fits together with everything else, and work at it until it's second nature (or second language, to be more fitting).

But, that is just the problem isn't it?

Spanish is taught the way it is because it is a living language, we are told.  Something like Koine Greek or Biblical Hebrew is a dead language, so we apparently don't have to try as hard.

That is so damaging.  We hurt ourselves and those we teach by teaching this way.  By teaching Greek and Hebrew the way it is typically taught, we put ourselves in as observers of Greek, not participants of it.  You can master Greek, but you may not feel it.  To think in Hebrew has to be completely different from merely being able to parse it.

  I know, I know.  Changing something as foundational of the basic pedagogy of language teaching would take time and effort that few teachers (and students), much less school administrators, would be willing to pay.  But it is worth it.  Others have said such, like Daniel Streett, or Michael Halcomb.  But they see things differently.  They know Greek.  I'm sure there are those on the Hebrew side of the equation as well.  I'm the one who took a year of Hebrew, a semester of Greek, and have been working on both in some degree for the last two years.  And I still can't speak a natural sentence of Greek.  Do I blame my teachers?  No.  I'm not in Administration, but I understand enough to see how hard it must be to get any change in.  Besides, when you've taught for 20+ years a certain style, there is no reason to expect them to change, even if it is not the most effective.  It still works.

But this generation of teachers, those in seminary or just starting, it's your job to embrace Greek and Hebrew as living languages.  The next generation should learn Greek or Hebrew as natural as they would French.  If God blesses me with a classroom, I hope to teach like Greek and Hebrew are living languages, if nothing else than for the fact that when the Old and New Testaments were written, they were.

The How-to to a Christian Sukkot

How do we do Sukkot?

Well, we've actually changed things somewhat during the course of the holiday.

At the beginning, we were planning on spending as much time as possible in a Sukkah, or outside.  Basically, we would limit our time inside greatly.

What is a Sukkah, you ask?  Here's a picture of ours:

Yes, that is a tent.  Jews would not accept a tent as a Sukkah.  But oh well.  The important part is passing on the meaning, not strict adherence to rules.  Heck, even a Jewish Rabbi agreed that modern day tents are closer to the Sukkot (plural for Sukkah) that Moses and the Israelites used, than the modern day Sukkot Jews build!

Source: http://www.rabbihannahorden.com/4-godwrestling/the-good-enough-sukkah/

So I said that we changed things.  For the sake of space, I'll explain what we do now, and not as much before.

Our goal is to spend more time outside than we usually do.  That said, if we really want to go inside, we will.  Again, the point of these holidays is that meaning is transferred from parent to child, and that the important truths that go along with the holidays are brought to mind.  What is not of great importance is meticulous (dare I say, Pharisaical?) rule-keeping.  Anyway, a lot of our time is spend on our porch, but we still have our Sukkah up.  However, we left the rain fly off. 

It rained.

The Sukkah got soaked.  It's mostly dried now, but that was still an interesting experience.

Another thing we did was we blessed the Sukkah.  We used a traditional Jewish blessing.  To go with that we got something called a lulav and an etrog.  A lulav is an assortment of plants.  We also got an etrog.  Kind of.  Those things are expensive.  And they look like lemons.  So . . . we got lemons.

Lulav and Etrog.

We shook them three times in six directions, and spoke the blessing.  I spoke it in Hebrew, and my wife spoke it in English.

Here's the blessing we spoke:

ברך אתה יהוה עלהינו מלך העולם שׁהחינו וקימנו והגינו לזמן הזה (the spelling may be off)

Blessed are You, Lord God, King of the universe, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season.

It's kind of simple.  We just spend some time outside, and enjoy life.  Sometimes I'll play a song that is quite relevant (and has been stuck in my head for some time now):

http://www.amazon.com/Sukkot-Song/dp/B0014DI1NA

We have tomorrow, and the next day, and then we'll have one more day: the day we take down the Sukkah.  You'd think that was the end of the festival, but it's actually not.  It is, in fact, the most important day of the festival.  What will we do then?  We'll go over a certain passage (John 7:37-39), which takes place during the eighth day of Sukkot.

Sukkot - The Purpose

Commonly referred to as the "Feast of Tabernacles" or "Feast of Booths", this is one of three holidays where every Jewish male was required to trek to Jerusalem to attend the festival (the other two were Passover and Pentecost).

Sukkot began yesterday, and it will last until next Wednesday.

I'll make a couple posts during Sukkot.  But today, I want to explain the purpose of Sukkot, both in its original context, as well as the context of the New Testament Christian.

The Original Context

The festival is explained, like many Jewish holidays, in Leviticus 23.  Here are the relevant portions:

Leviticus 23:33-36

33 The Lord spoke to Moses: 34 “Tell the Israelites: The Festival of Booths to the Lord begins on the fifteenth day of this seventh month and continues for seven days. 35 There is to be a sacred assembly on the first day; you are not to do any daily work. 36 You are to present a fire offering to the Lord for seven days. On the eighth day you are to hold a sacred assembly and present a fire offering to the Lord. It is a solemn gathering;  you are not to do any daily work. 

Leviticus 23:39-43

39 “You are to celebrate the Lord’s festival on the fifteenth day of the seventh month for seven days after you have gathered the produce of the land. There will be complete rest on the first day and complete rest on the eighth day. 40 On the first day you are to take the product of majestic trees—palm fronds, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook—and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. 41 You are to celebrate it as a festival to the Lord seven days each year. This is a permanent statute for you throughout your generations; you must celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 You are to live in booths  for seven days. All the native-born of Israel must live in booths, 43 so that your generations may know that I made the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God.”

The Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness.  Interestingly enough, in our Bible reading, we are in Numbers, during the time of this waiting.

What is important about this waiting?  Here's three takeaways from the wandering story.

     Faith is important.  The people were forced to wander 40 years due to lack of faith in God.  Clearly, for God's covenant community, trusting in God is something to be taken seriously.

     There was an end to the wandering.  After wandering, living in tents, eventually these 40 years passed, and the Israelites moved into houses.

     There was provision.  Their sandals never wore out.  Neither did their clothes.  They were, on multiple occasions, provided with incredible amounts of water, despite being in a desert.  They literally had food fall from the sky.  As angry as God was with the generation that failed to trust Him, He still showered provision upon them.

Jewish families, then, right now are likely in a Sukkah (Hebrew for tent).  They are certainly reflecting on these truths.  But there is more to the story.  As with every Jewish festival, Sukkot is pointing to something greater.  More accurately, someone greater.

New Testament Context

Jesus Christ embodied Sukkot.  Quite literally, in fact.

     As we see in Philippians 2:7-8, Jesus took on flesh (the wording of Paul's actually resembles that of clothing, or a tent):

 

7 Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men.  And when He had come as a man in His external form, 8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross.

So let us look at these truths through the lens of Christ:

     Faith is important.  The Old Covenant was with a nation.  The means of this covenant was by birth. You were a part of this covenant because you were born an Israelite.  While there were exceptions (Rahab the prostitute as an example), entrance into the covenant community was based on one's DNA.

         For the church, however, God has made His covenant with individual believers.  The means of this covenant is by faith, not birth.  It is not because your parents are Christian that makes you a Christian.  It is because of your faith in God, and His Son Jesus Christ.  If faith was important for a covenant community marked by genetics, how much more important is faith in a covenant community marked by faith!  

     There was an end to the wandering.  We live in a Sukkah, whether we realize it or not.  Our bodies are temporary dwellings. 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 is probably the clearest New Testament passage concerning Sukkot:

2 Corinthians 5:1-5

For we know that if our temporary, earthly dwelling is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling  in the heavens,  not made with hands. 2 Indeed, we groan in this body, desiring  to put on our dwelling from heaven, 3 since, when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 And the One who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment. 

          We will all be changed.  We will put away our earthly Sukkah, and go to our heavenly Home.

    There was provision.  While we are in our Sukkah, our earthly body, God does not ignore us.  Christianity is not a religion concerned only with the afterlife.  We are given provision.  Bread, both physical and spiritual, is provided for us.  We do not go alone in this wandering.  God is with us, for He has given us His own Holy Spirit as a down payment for us.

Jesus is the God of Sukkot.  

Sometime before the end of Sukkot I'll post about how we as a family do Sukkot.  Perhaps it will inspire you to do the same, or just reflect on the truths of Sukkot during this time.

Yom Kippur

Today is Yom Kippur.  Oddly enough, we've been celebrating it all day, even though technically it only started less than two hours ago.  But since we don't follow the Jewish calendar, it started this morning.

This holiday is a little extra special to me, for two reasons.

1) This holiday, more than any other, we celebrate differently from Orthodox Judaism.

Jews all over the world are practicing self-denial.  They are fasting.  They are refusing pleasure.  For them, Yom Kippur is the holiest, most solemn day of the year.  I respect that.

But I am not Orthodox Jewish.  I am a Christian.  Instead of remembering how a high priest sacrificed the blood of a goat in the Holy of Holies on earth, I remember something else.  Something better.  I remember how the Messiah, the Son of God, entered the Holy of Holies in Heaven, and, as our High Priest, offered Himself, His own blood, as a sacrifice.  On the Cross, Jesus was our Atonement.

Jesus is not only the Passover Lamb, but also the Goat of Yom Kippur.

Because of this great truth, I do not fast.  Rather, I and my family feast, celebrating the Atonement blood-bought by Christ.

2) This is the first Jewish holiday that we've celebrated more than once.

For the past year, our family has observed some of the Jewish holidays (In particular: Yom Kippur, Chanukah, Purim, and Passover)

It's interesting.  Its Yom Kippur, and I have memories of two separate events.  Most significantly is our daughter Sarah.  Last year she just cried and sat in her car seat (since she wasn't even three months old).
But this year, she's 14 months.  She ate.  A lot.  A lot of eating occurred from this ridiculous child.  I guess she just got in the Yom Kippur spirit.

So what's next?  The one Jewish holiday that I originally wanted to celebrate, but did not this past year: Sukkot.

I'll post an article about that on Friday or so when Sukkot starts.

In the meantime, I'm working on an article (one less Jewish), and I'll be writing a few more later as well.

!חג שמך (Khag Sameakh)

(happy holiday)

P.S. If you know an observant Jew, don't tell them that.  Yom Kippur is only solemn to them, not happy.