Continued from the About page.
We read in Genesis 48:15-16, “He blessed Joseph and said, “the God before whom my father Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless these lads; and may my name live in them, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. Concerning this verse, Rashi stated that even though the word for multiply or multitude is (וְיִדְגוּ)(veyidgu), the root of the word dag is related to fish, and they should be as numerous as fish, which proliferate and become numerous without the evil eye (ayin hara) having any power over them.
Me’am Lo’ez goes deeper with this idea. It states, “May they be like fish multiplying all over the earth. Just as the evil eye has no power over fish, so may it have no power over your offspring. May your children be like fish also in another manner. Fish grow in water and are surrounded by it, yet when a raindrop falls, they drink it with thirst, as if they have never before tasted water. Your children are immersed in the Torah, which is likened to water. When they hear a new thought, may they drink it with such thirst as if they had never heard a word of the Torah before.” But what becomes of fish? Habakkuk 1:5 states, “Look among the nations and watch. Be utterly astonished, for I will work a work in your days which you would not believe though it were told to you. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places that are not theirs. The sages interpret the phrase I will work a work in your days ( כּי פּעֵל פֹּּּעל בִּימֵיכֶם )(Ki fo’al po’el bimechem) as “because a deed will be done.” The Sages further interpret this verse, “I will raise up the Chaldeans, the Gentiles are bitter and hasty (Habakkuk 1:6), and all of them are horsemen, as it is said, “bitter and hasty” (Naham 3:3), and they come from a far country to live in a neighborhood that is not theirs, and they go up to the top of a mountain and it is a mountain from the top of Israel, and they break into the Temple and put out the candles and tear down the doors.”
We must realize that every accomplishment and historical event can relate to the past, present, and future, not just in real-time but throughout time. The Sages also say that the statement, “I will work a work in your days which you will not believe,” is connected to a positive prophetic side, which is found in Zechariah 8:23, which states, “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: in those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the canaf of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”
We can read of the utter frustration that this destruction caused the Jewish people in Habakkuk 1:14-15 where it states, “Why have you made men like fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler over them? The Chaldeans bring them up with a hook, drag them away with their net, and gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore, they rejoice and are glad. Therefore, they offer a sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their fishing net because through these things, their catch is large, and their food is plentiful. Will they, therefore, empty their net and continually slay the nations without sparing? Chazal asks, “Why are men compared to fish of the sea, as the creeping things that have no ruler over them?” The answer: to teach you that just as fish die as soon as they are taken on land, so do men die when they separate themselves from the Torah. This implies that larger fish in the sea swallow the smaller ones, and the only thing that can stop them is understanding the Torah. If governments were ruled by the Torah, the stronger would no longer swallow the weaker.
Jeremiah builds on this concept and even connects Romans 11 as it gradually shows a shift of inclusion when it states, “Therefore behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that is shall no more be said, the Lord lives who brought up Benei Israel from the land of Egypt, but, the Lord lives who brought up Benei Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them, for I will bring them back into their land, which I gave to their fathers. Behold I will send for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall fish them, and afterward, I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the holes in the rocks. For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes. And I first will repay double for their iniquity and their sin because they have defiled My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable idols. O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles have come to You from the ends of the earth and say, “Surely our fathers have inherited lies, worthless and unprofitable things. Will a man make gods for himself? Therefore behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know My hand and My might, and they shall know that My name is the Lord.” There is a two-fold promise here. God will return the Jews to their land and do great work among the nations. Both of these things are a reality today. The number of Gentile believers who understand that they have inherited lies, worthless and unprofitable things is legion.
Another passage that shows the effects of proper fishermen in the Millennial Reign is found in Ezekiel 47:9-12, “There will be a very great multitude of fish because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the rivers goes. It shall be that fishermen will stand by it from En Gedi to Eneglaim; there will be a place for the spreading of nets. Their fish will be according to their kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea, very many. But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be given over to salt. By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because their waters flow from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.
But how do we get from Habakkuk 1 to Ezekiel 47? What connects these verses from Habakkak to Ezekiel, from the past into the present and the future? HaShem must provide the fishermen and the hunters. And He did! We read about this in Matthew 4:18-19, "Now as Yeshua was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. Yeshua is sending fishermen to gather not only the Jews but also the Gentiles in fulfillment of Ezekiel 47. It is partially fulfilled now, but it will soon be fulfilled entirely. Before this could be totally fulfilled, there had to be a time of transition.
Shaul discusses this time of transition in two significant passages of Scripture. The first passage is in Romans 11:1 when he asks, "Has HaShem cast His people away? May it never be. For I, too, am an Israelite, a descendent of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. HaShem has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. He knows and understands that HaShem has not forsaken His people, but the time for Gentile inclusion was at hand. He describes this in Romans 11:11, where he once again brings up the Jewish people and asks an important question, "I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? May it never be! But by their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them zealous. Now, If their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be?
There is a great story about three Rabbis who took a journey together. As the story goes, Rabbi Hizkiyah, Rabbi Yose, and Rabbi Yehuda were taking a journey together. Rabbi Yose said, "Let each one of us give some exposition of Torah. R' Yehuda then began with the verse, "Remember not the iniquities of our forefathers against us; let Your compassion come quickly to meet us, for we are brought very low (Psalms 79:8). He said HaShem, in His great love for Israel, allows not one to sit in judgment on them save Himself, and when He tries them, He is filled with compassion for them like a father for his children, and when He finds they have done wrong, He removes their offenses one by one until there are none left that could grant the side of judgment dominion over them. If they come to sin before Him as previously, He reckons against them those sins that He had eliminated. Concerning this, it is written, "do not remember against us former iniquities; let Your compassion swiftly meet us. For if compassion does not come upon Israel, they cannot endure in the world because countless masters of harsh judgment and shield-bearing warriors, countless informers stand poised over Israel, and if the blessed Holy One did not first show compassion, they could not endure in the world.
Rabbi Yose continues by saying, "For we (Israel) are very poor, that is, poor in good deeds (gemilut chasadim) in the sight of HaShem. If Israel would accumulate worthy deeds, other nations would not endure in the world, but Israel themselves enable other nations to hold their head up high in the world. If Israel had not sinned before the blessed Holy One, other nations would have been subdued before them.
This is the same thing that Shaul is saying in Romans, "I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? May it never be! But by their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them zealous." If Israel had been rich in gemilut chasadim, the Gentiles would not have had the opportunity to come into the gospel privilege. We see this fulfilled in Revelation 7:9-11, "After these things I looked and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the lamb..."
But as we come into the fullness of all that HaShem has for the Gentiles, we need a way to measure this in our lives. To be in a relationship without an understanding of where you stand in that relationship is not love; it is abuse. How do we recognize this standard of measurement? In Ephesians 2:11-13, Shaul states, "Remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Mashiach, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without HaShem in the world. But now in Mashiach Yeshua, you who once were far have been brought near by the blood of the Mashiach."
In other words, if you want a reliable measurement of your relationship with HaShem, you must never forget where you came from. You should never take the relationship for granted because you do not initiate it. It was offered to you because of the sacrifice of Yeshua on the cross, as well as the nation of Israel, as was just discussed.
But the question still is - how do you measure this? In Ephesians 2:14, Shaul shows us how to measure your accountability in the relationship with HaShem. HaShem is consistent in His relationship with us. He never changes. How do we measure our stability in the relationship? Ephesians 2:14 states, "For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make of the two one new man, thus establishing peace and might reconcile them both in one body to Hashem through the cross.
Many do not know how to measure our relationship with HaShem using this verse. Many ministers use this Scripture verse to say that Yeshua did away with the Torah. That is certainly not what is being said here. Shaul is not saying that God did away with the תּוֹרַת הַמּצְווֹת שׁבַּחֻקִּם He is saying that "Yeshua abolished in His flesh the enmity which is the law of commandments in ordinances so that in Himself He might make of the two one new man, thus establishing peace and might reconcile them both in one body to HaShem through the cross." The measurement is found in the word enmity. The word in Greek is ἔχθρα which means "hatred of and hostility toward something or someone. It means to be an enemy of." So, if you are grafted into the commonwealth of Israel, there should be no hostility, no hatred of the Torah as the very foundation of your faith. The only way that Yeshua could form the one new man is for both Jew and Gentile to come together on a common and solid foundation. That foundation is the Torah. Remember, please, that Yeshua stated that Moses wrote about Him. The Torah is about Yeshua, the promised Messiah to come. It is the purpose of Derekh Ha'achdut to teach the New Testament on top of, in addition to, the foundation of the Torah. The New Testament is, in fact, a midrash of the Torah. They go hand in hand. Accepting the Torah as the foundation for the New Testament is not a salvation issue. However, it certainly is a depth of understanding issue. It is certainly a measurement issue.
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