Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar;
Exodus 19:3; “And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying: ‘Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the sons of Israel.’”
What is the different between the “house of Jacob” and the “sons of Israel?” Moses is to relate the commandments of God to both groups. Now Moses is to “say” (to’amar) to the house of Jacob but he is to “tell” (negad) the sons of Israel. “To’amar is simply to speak, to declare as to get an emotional response, but “negad” is to make extremely clear, spell it out very clearly so there is no misunderstanding.
The difference is sort of like the difference between poetry and science. In poetry you have to experience the word to understand it. In science you have to put the word under a microscope and examine it. The first group of people are to experience the law, the second group are to examine the law under a microscope. Both are needed to come to a complete understanding of the law or the Word of God.
In our culture there seems to be such a division among Christians. You have those who study the Word of God scientifically, they will analyze it in seminaries and graduate schools and take every word apart and put it together again. Then you have those who reject any scientific study and just want to experience the Word of God. It would seem Exodus 19:3 is encouraging both, yet they must come together to be complete.
In Jewish tradition, it is man who studies Torah in the synagogue, but yet it is the women who are more important than men in religious training. The women are to be taught first by their husbands, and then they pass this on to their children. The spiritual future and fate of the children lies in the mother.
The sages draw this from the word in the Hebrew for mother (em). This is the same word (im) for “if.” “If” the mother is pious, in all probability the children will take after her. The mother is the big “if” of family life. In Jewish religious law, a child takes after the identity of his or her mother. For a child to be considered Jewish, it is the maternal genealogy that is primary. As the mother goes, so goes the child.
Hence, the Talmud teaches that the “house of Jacob” represents the women and the sons of Israel represent the men. Thus, Moses was to “say” to the women, in other words, let the women experience the law, feel it, enjoy it and understand it emotionally and pass it on to their children, while the men were to be “told” the law, or to analyze it and understand it from a scientific analysis. The men learn in their scientific study in the synagogue what is kosher. They tell their wives who take this cold, scientific kosher law and then the wives turn it into something that is tasty, wholesome, memory building, loving etc. They take the law into their homes and make it beautiful.
It is the role of the husband to help his wife understand the Word of God and it is the role of the wife to help her husband experience the Word of God. The two must work together, hand in hand (yadiyad), heart to heart to enter into a completeness in their relationship with God. The woman is the gateway to the presence of God, but it is the man who must led her through that gate.
Proverbs 18:22: “Whoso findeth a wife (Heb. ‘ishah – one who is filled with the peace and presence of God) findeth (a) good (tov, harmony with God) and obtainth favour (Heb. Reson – God’s pleasure) of the Lord.” If I may paraphrase: “Whoever finds a wife who is filled with the peace and presence of God will find harmony with God and will experience God’s pleasure.” The C Minch Unauthorized Version.
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