Leviticus 6:2:  “Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This [is] the law of the burnt offering: It [is] the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.”

I can see it now, I will have a dozen people write to me telling me I gave the wrong Scripture reference.  Why in their Bibles this passage is really Leviticus 6:9.  So I will say it once again, in the Hebrew Text verse numbering can often be a little different than your English text.  In the Hebrew Text Leviticus 6:1-7 is really 5:20-26.

Do I sound annoyed?  Yes, I am.  I have spent the last 40 years living in my Hebrew Bible, I’m sorry if I come across let’s say a bit too Jewish?  Ok, let me back up.  In Seminary, almost forty years ago I met with an esoteric rabbi who introduced me to an area of Hebrew that after five years of Hebraic study in Christian colleges and Seminaries I never even knew existed.  For many years I played it by the book. I taught Hebrew in Bible college just like it was taught to me by my professors in Christian schools. But all that time I kept a secret room in my Hebraic studies. I poured over Jewish literature, the Talmud, Midrash, Mishnah, and Targum etc.  This is where I learn Aramaic, albeit pretty much self-taught.  But I discovered a world that seemed to be closed off to Christianity, nothing major, nothing that would change my doctrinal position which I signed as a student at Moody Bible Institute and would with good conscious sign to this day.  Yet, there were things about God, His nature, His love, His heart yearnings, His mercy, and the nature of man that I never learned in Christianity but found buried in the depths of Jewish teaching.  I call it the esoteric nature of the Hebrew language. Esoteric is defined by Webster as: “intended for  or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.”  I share much of this in my book Beyond the Lexicon which you have been very wonderful to purchase moving it to a best seller status on Amazon.  I did my doctoral dissertation on the Esoteric Structure of the Hebrew Alphabet.  It took a long time to find a school that would allow me to do a dissertation on the subject as it was not considered an academic study.  But it was an obsession with me for almost 40 years.

I published my first book Hebrew Word Study A Hebrew Teacher’s Search for the Heart of God where I presented for the first time my many years of research into the Esoteric Hebrew in a study of thirty passages of Scripture using my knowledge of the Esoteric Hebrew.  The book sold so many copies it caught the attention of a major publisher. There is just one problem, although average Joe Christian loves it, Jews do not feel I am qualified to present studies on the esoteric Hebrew as I was not mentored by a rabbi, I respect that and accept their criticism. Christians feel there is no place in Christianity for this strange Jewish approach to the language which is not considered an academic study.  I respect that also as even I am not certain just how much is legitimate after forty years of study.

So I took a step forward and began to share my forty years of research by publishing four books on Hebrew Word Studies.  After selling around 20,000 books in two years I had to take a hard look as to just what I was doing by introducing something into Christianity that is not accepted by our Christian scholars and that the Jews feel I am not qualified to share.  As I said, I totally respect their concerns and I made a decision this evening to back off, lock to the door to that aspect of the my research and just share on my blog good Christian stuff like I used to do when I taught in Bible College.

I felt I was in a struggle with God over this.  I cried out to God, “If you really want me to share the stuff then just show me.”  So I collapsed in my sofa staring off into space doing nothing.  As I hate to waste a perfectly good minute I walked to my book corner, I have a stack of books piled on the floor against the wall and I just arbitrarily picked up a book. It was on the esoteric Hebrew. I let it fall open to a page talking about the Mem.  In the Torah scrolls, not your standard Hebrew Bible or the Kittle but in the scrolls which are handwritten the Mem in Leviticus 6:2 (6:9 in you English Bibles) in reduced in size and is smaller than all the other letters.  That was the last thing I wanted to deal with at the moment, more esoteric stuff.

So I pull out my IPAD and randomly went to an orthodox rabbinical site and arbitrarily click on the first study that my finger tapped without looking and it was Leviticus 6:2 (6:9 in your English Bible).  Again a study on the miniature Mem. Coincidence or God incident?  I will let you judge.  The Mem that is being discussed is found in the word moqdah which is rendered in some translations as pyre. I don’t even know what that means.  Some translations say hearth.  That is still antiquated. How about firewood?  That makes sense?

This word has a Mem reduced in size, that is what I mean by esoteric, why is it shrunken in this verse?  Why do the most ancient manuscripts of Leviticus show a shrunken Mem?  Probably to show this dusty old professor that the only reason he is considering putting the pad lock on the esoteric door is pride and not wanting to be criticized for something he most likely has no business discussing other than with God.   The Rebbe of Kotzk tells us that the Mem is reduced in size to teach us that the fire in one’s heart should be understated, it should burn within, but show nothing on the outside.  The letters in  ‘Al moqdah can be rearranged (esoteric rabbis do that, not Christians).  You see in the original Hebrew text there were no divisions between words.  So who is to say you cannot put that Mem at the end of ‘al rather than at the beginning of moqdah.  If you do that you have‘alm ogdah which means go hide, conceal.  ‘Alm also means secret and eternity.

Jeremiah 20:9:  “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But [his word] was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not [stay].”

I realize much of my study  in the esoteric Hebrew was for me and my personal eternal relationship with God. It wasn’t meant to be shared and I will not share it, unless, like Jeremiah I find the message  of His Word in my heart a moqdah a burning fire shut up in my bones. Then it will show up in my blog and future books and at my age, why should I care if I get a blow back, it’s a free country, I have a right to my personal beliefs.  My Call to Silence book is one such book that I will not change for that esoteric experience with the Word of God changed my relationship with God and drove me closer to Him and in hearing the message of His creation in a way that I never experienced before.

That message is a burning fire in my heart and although it is only revealed through an esoteric understanding, I will continue to share it. Otherwise I will behave like a good Christian Hebrew teacher.