Why Hebraic?

I meant to answer this question days ago but got busy and forgot!

Q:Do you have a post somewhere detailng your Shabbat traditions and beliefs a bit more? I would love to learn more!

A: Well, there are bits and pieces in different posts, but nothing very organized or in-depth, so I'll do that now. Some of it will be a very quick overview of things I have posted already, but this will bring it all together.

Growing up I was taught the whole 'the Jews have been replaced as the Chosen People' aka replacement philosophy. I hate to say I even agreed with the ideology that what happened to the Jews was horrific, but it was God's punishment on them for rejecting the Messiah. And I believed that anyone who had the name Christian on their door was closer to the truth than the Jews because they refused to believe in the one thing that saved any of us- Jesus.

Now that is not to say I would have ever tolerated any anti-semitic actions of others. I have always been a defender of the minority. Once in 3rd grade we had to read the account of a southern slave, and I cried so hard I had to go to the nurse. Oppression of any kind has never been acceptable to me. I would never condone mistreatment of anyone, and felt if the Jews were being allowed to suffer, it was still our duty to show love and kindness and to protect them. I’m not sure if that is easy to understand, but I knew in my heart that we were called to love and care for people and that God would handle the rest. I never hated Jews, but believed that they were being punished for refusing Jesus.

I went through a time of wondering in High School and attended many different churches and services and meetings. It confused me that there were so many opinions in what was based on the Bible. It turned out that a lot of that was not actually based on the Bible but in traditions of men. Anywhoo, I started to feel that there had to be some kind of ‘sense’ in the confusion and I wanted to know it. Unfortunately, I ended up looking in the wrong places. I was blessed that the Holy Spirit would not give me peace, because that is what caused me to look further. After I was married, we decided we could no longer just accept what we had learned. We had to dig it out and glean it ourselves. We found ourselves at a church that held to the Word as authoritative, which is what we needed. And through this church we made many connections that were the Hand of God showing us what he wanted us to know.

So, starting from the beginning, we took the Bible literally. And when you say that people will recoil in shock. I was asked if I go sit outside the city during my monthly cycle (which came up in a later discussion here if you are interested), but I was also asked if I cut off my hand after I sinned. I realized many people did not understand that the Bible has both literal instructions and allegorical instructions. That the Law was written to demonstrate to man his need for the Savior, but that even before the Law He had established things that were pleasing to Him. Jesus spoke in parables to confuse the wicked people but His sheep would understand what He was saying. We also found that there are specific parts of the OT that have been revised or completed because of the fulfillment of the Law by Christ. But that does not make the OT obsolete. In fact, without the OT we could not understand the New. For the first time I made use of cross-references and saw the error in some of the theology I had been given. Often the problem was either a verse taken out of context (to which I had just nodded my head and accepted as true) or that the ambiguity of the English language got in the way of understanding.

We saw that the feasts were established by God for all generations, which had to include us. But we didn’t really know what we were doing as far as observing them or what the time table for their occurrence was. We started out very simply with our kids doing what we called Old Testament dinners. We had the foods that were listed in the Bible and we read a story aloud, but it wasn’t anything close to the depth of understanding we longed for. We just kept at it, reading and studying and being shocked by what we found out. The list of things we knew we needed to throw out was very long. And what we wanted to replace them with seemed just out of our reach because it was never a part of our lives. But the Holy Spirit began to put things and people in our path that were perfectly timed to each question.

First was a lady from our new church who was a Messianic Jew. We were acquainted with the family already through friends and co-op, but had never known she was Messianic. That was a great lesson, that her faith and practices meshed with ours. It would answer the question later of whether you had to be Jewish to be like Jesus, or whether the Jews had to become Christians (and all this is also found in Acts and Galatians). She began to offer Hebrew lessons for the children and I started to learn from the CDs and books they brought home. We also attended her son’s Bar Mitsvah and it was just amazing.

Next our church had a guest speaker from the Chosen People Ministries in New York. He went over the feasts of the OT and how Jesus was the fulfillment of Passover and Yom Kippur and how the feasts were essential to understanding prophesy. From his table, I bought several books that were just wonderful! One was about understanding and celebrating the Shabbat. YEAH! This speaker has come back to the church every year since and it has just been such a blessing.

When I started blogging a year ago, it never crossed my mind that there would be others looking for the same understanding I was. Through linking to a link to a link, etc, I found Stephanie, then Audrey, and Julie, and another dear lady who has since taken her blog down, and the info links they provided just opened up so much more learning. This is also when we ‘came out of the closet’ so to speak. It was not shame but simply the need to know what we were doing and why before we let anyone else know about it.

Now to the specific question you asked in regard to Shabbat. God established a day of rest before there was even sin, so a day of rest is good and has nothing to do with a Law as a schoolmaster or way to righteousness. We celebrate it instead as a blessing and a shadow of the things to come. I bought a Complete Jewish Bible as an aide to the King James and understanding what even now is different in our language. In the back it has a list of readings for Shabbat for the year. These are just passages that are good for reflection on this day. We eat what Jesus would have eaten, though we do not abide by Rabbinical laws as they are of man and not of God. So we do not have to refrain from meat and dairy together. These were a second ‘layer’ of rules to try and prevent breaking the most important, but this rule-making is what Jesus condemned in Matthew 15. We also try to follow the clean and unclean guidelines God set forth, not because keeping these will save us or make us righteous, but because He knew what was best for us and we trust Him. If all we had was pork, we would not be condemned to eat it. But as Paul said, all things may be permissible but not all things are beneficial. We try to follow the plan God laid out because it was best for man, not because we are winning our righteousness. The same philosophy applies to the day on which we celebrate the Shabbat. Because of the confusion over the calendars and the way the world has changed days and times, it would be hard to know the exact Shabbat. But since we know the seventh day was set aside and on the calendar that is Saturday (though it starts at sundown on Friday) we celebrate our meal at sunset on Friday. It is not because doing it any other way would condemn us, but because we find special understanding and communion with God when we try to do it His way.

Obviously some of the laws in the Old Covenant were done away with, such as sacrifices, when Jesus became our sacrifice. But others are still meant forever. I have heard many a person say we are no longer meant to keep a Sabbath, yet they wouldn’t think of breaking one of the other Commandments. There is not a list of what has been abolished or fulfilled per se, so what we have done is approach it very slowly and apply two different criteria to it: Is it addressed in the New Testament, and does it fall under the ‘new command’ from Jesus to love God first and foremost and to love our neighbor as ourselves. I truly feel a Shabbat comes under loving God with all my heart and soul and mind and strength because it is a day set aside for him when there is so much I could be getting done. It is a show of faith that He will provide rather than a need to constantly work to take care of myself. Just like tithing with money, I believe we are meant to tithe with our time.

*As a side note, we have now come to use Yahweh and Yeshua because there is SO much ambiguity even in the names God and Jesus, and we want to make it clear just whom we serve.