AlephBeta
Hopefully this will be a bit lighter and less work for you. Please first listen to/watch this presentation from AlephBeta. It is 11-1/2 minutes. Keep what he says in mind as you read what is written below. Listen again after you have read, if necessary. I see many connections.
https://www.alephbeta.org/playlist/understand-what-bible-says-jewish-holidays
Below is simply a screenshot – not active. You’ll need to use the link above.
Deuteronomy 16:3
3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.
See that unleavened bread, as at Passover, is the bread of affliction – abstaining from the leaven of life.
In these passages, please be think on two levels, physical and spiritual. And try to relate them back to R. Fohrman’s discussion on the life of the plant through the eating of bread. The passages are simply copied from NKJV and ESV – no “dissection.”
- This passage from John is at the well in Sychar.
John 4:31-38
31 In the meantime his disciples urged him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
33 Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”
34 The Teacher said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish His work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! 36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
As you read the passage below, two things I need to share. First, recall that “sea” in Hebrew is ים, and the study on ים showed:
- ים cognate permutations (strengthen/weaken)
Second, recall that the passage comes right after John’s sharing of the feeding of the five-thousand with loaves and fishes (i.e. the weary crowd has been “strengthened”).
⦁ John 6:25-63
25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 The Teacher answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 The Teacher answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 The Teacher then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
35 The Teacher said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 The Teacher answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So the Teacher said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 the Teacher said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But the Teacher, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
John 12:7-8
7 But the Teacher said, “Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of my burial. 8 For the poor you have with you always, but me you do not have always.” (my emphasis)
Mark 14:22
22 And as they were eating, the Teacher took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”
Recognize, please, that in the Teacher’s teachings about his body being equivalent to bread is also a parallel, a parable with Fohrman’s discussion of the cycle with plants and dying and being given new life, which then becomes sustaining to mankind. Also notice the harvest discussion in John 4 and in the video. Finally, notice the parallel being drawn – in John 6:63 it is the spirit that brings life – in R. Fohrman’s discussion, it is water that brings back the life of the ground grain that had had its life-giving potential crushed, together with the naturally-occurring leaven on the wheat itself (we all certainly have much naturally-occurring “leaven”). Water (the Teaching of God) brings back to life.
There are some heavier things on the way. I wanted to give a little Sabbath. 😉
Ⓒ Copyright LogAndSpeck May 2023. Please cite if copying.