Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomim:
Deuteronomy 6:5: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.”
An eleventh century rabbi known as Jacob Ben Asher remarked that the two letters for the word “heart” (Lamed, Beth) are the only two letters in the Hebrew alphabet that can be combined with all the letters of God’s name to make meaningful words. God’s name is spelled Yod, Hei, Vav, Hei. The first letter in the word “heart” is Lamed. You put the Lamed before the Yod and you have Li “to me.” The Lamed before the Hei gives you Lah “to her” and the Lamed before the Vav gives you Lo “to him.” The next letter in the word heart is Beth. The Beth before the Yod is Bi ‘in me.” The Beth before the Hei is Bah “in her” and the Beth before the Vav is Bo “in him.” No other letters in the Hebrew alphabet has this feature. The significance of this is that the heart is the point at which our connection with God is made.
The Torah or the first five books of the Bible started with the Beth and ends with the Lamed. The Lamed Beth spells the word for heart. Of course the letters are in reverse order which the sages teach is to show us that we must read through Torah and then review it for the Word of God to make a connection with our heart.
The proper order of the word heart is Lamed, Beth. However, if you reverse that order you have Beth, Lamed which means “not,” “no” or “negative.” If our relationship with God depends upon our heart and our hearts are in proper order (Lamed, Beth) it can bring us to a completion with God. However, if our hearts are out of order (Beth, Lamed) it can bring us into lack and negative feelings.
In the Lamed the little bump in the middle of the letter is to the right. The sages teach that the right side of the lamed, the heart of God joins with the left side of our heart to form a completion of the heart. Jewish literature teaches that the heart of a wise man is to the right and the heart of the fool is to the left. The wise heart of God joins the foolish heart of man to make man’s heart complete. In Hebrew we read from right to left. In the word heart, the first letter is the lamed and the next is the beth when you read it right to left. In English we read left to right and if you read the word in the Hebrew from left to right, the Beth comes first and the Lamed follows. If you read the word properly in Hebrew you will have the word “Lev” for heart which shows the way of the wise. However if you read it improperly from the left to the right you have the word “Bal” which means “no” or “not” and shows the way of the fool.
My point in this exercise is to show that when we translate word for word we get: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” If we translate letter by letter we gain a deeper insight into what it means to love God with all our heart.
The sages teach that when we examine the letters of a word in this fashion we are not to create innovation to the teachings of our fathers and tradition but told to expand upon these teachings. In other words I study and meditate on the Hebrew letters not to find new revelation that takes me off the orthodox reservation but to uphold, confirm and provide further Scriptural support for orthodox teachings.
This morning, being the 4th of July, I read an article about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I was taught in grammar school and again by another teacher in High School that John Hancock signed his named larger than all the others because he wanted to make sure King George could read his name without his glasses. I even passed this story onto to my high school students when I taught school. Now I read an article written by an historian who did research on this that John Hancock, as president of the Congress, was the first to sign. He had no idea the others would sign the document in smaller script making him stand out. Sort of like when asking a volunteer to step forward and everyone takes one step back leaving some poor soul standing in front of everyone. Not only that all those dramatic movies where all the leaders step forward to sign the document on the 4th of July is also untrue. John Hancock signed the document on August 2 and the rest of the signatures were not included until November. Hollywood was just adding a little artistic license.
As I study the Word of God through the eyes of the ancient Jewish sages I am beginning to find that many of the preachers and teachers I grew up with also exercised artistic license. Just as Hollywood portrays history not as it was, but as it should have been, so too I find many teachers and preachers teach the Bible not as it was originally taught by the Jewish sages, who were the guardians of the Word, but as it fits their own agenda. I was recently in a Bible study where someone asked the leader if the word “wait” in Isaiah 40:31 means to serve like a waiter serving a customer. The leader responded that this is exactly what it meant. A few years ago this became a popular teaching among TV and radio teachers until some Hebrew professors managed to point out that the word “wait” does not mean that at all in the Hebrew but is the word for binding and tightening. You bind and tighten yourself to the Lord and your strength will be renewed. Of course you can get more production out of your congregation if you take a little artistic license and say it means to serve.
This little study on the word “heart” is not my own idea, it is something that has been taught for thousands of years and is meant to encourage you to consider some of the things you have been taught all your life and maybe do a little research on it to make sure it is correct or to maybe find a deeper understanding. After all the Declaration of Independence was signed less than 250 years ago and look at all the weeds of legend that grew up around that which we accept as truth. How many more weeds around teachings on the Word of God could have grown up in 2,000 years that we accept as truth and are nothing but a legend started by some preacher or teacher who just took some artistic license to wow his congregation.
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