HEBREW WORD STUDY – PAUSE – KACHATSOT כחצת Kap Cheth Sade Taw

Exodus 11:4 “So Moses said, ‘Thus says the LORD: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt,’

Today is the Passover Sabbath and in our Weekly Torah Portion Study on our live All Access class this morning we reviewed the story of the Passover. I read something very interesting about the Talmud in Baba Kama 60b.

Most of our modern English translations render the word kachatsot as about. Some do not even translate the word but simply say “at midnight.” But I discovered that kachatsot is a word that should not be overlooked as some translations do. There is much being revealed in that word. Our Christian lexicons simply say that it means about, mid or in the midst of. I fully understand why some translators will ignore kachatsot as it sounds redundant. It literally means in the middle of midnight. Now, what is the middle of midnight? It makes no sense.

But say, to the sages, it makes perfect sense. In fact, it even hints as to the identity of the destroyer or the hamashechit. One use of the word kachatsot is to pause. The Kap at the beginning of the word is a preposition for like or as. Thus, it would literally be rendered as like or as the middle of midnight.

In ancient Jewish thought, the hours leading up to midnight is called the gevurah or strength. As the hours pass toward midnight it gets darker and darker. That is when evil gathers strength until midnight when it gets lighter and lighter as the hours pass. That part of the night is called the chassad or the mercy of God. To say kachatsot midnight is saying that there is something between the moment after gevurah and before chassad. What is that moment? It is that moment when the destroyer came.

Who or what is the destroyer or hamashechit? The root word is shachat which means to corrupt, to reverse or return to a primordial state. Is this as some say the angel of death? It is a demon or even the enemy himself? We do not know, we can only guess so what I offer is my guess. I do not believe it is any of these. It is not a person or being. It is law of physics that brings a physical body back to its primordial state, ie., an unembodied soul or spirit.

Leviticus 9:1: “And it came to pass on the eighth day, [that] Moses called Aaron and his sons, and the elders of Israel;”In Jewish philosophy seven is the circle of creation. It is the physical realm of God’s creation. For seven days prior to Leviticus 9:1 Moses had the people erect the tabernacle, he went into the tabernacle and performed some ceremonies, and then in the evening they took the tabernacle down. This was done seven times for seven days during the inauguration of the tabernacle. But on the eighth day God instructed Aaron to offer sacrifices and on the eighth day the cloud of glory, the Shekinah Glory came upon the tabernacle. The number seven is the circle of creation, the creation of the natural world, the creation of time and space. Eight is the circumference, it is outside the natural world, it is outside of time and space. It is the realm where God exists.

Actually, God existing is a misnomer in a theological sense. Paul Tillich was a German (of course) American theologian, one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. He one day announced to his class at the University of Chicago that God did not exist and he would prove it before class ended. He indeed did just that. He proved it by giving his class the proper theological definition of existence. For something to exist, it has to have a beginning. God has no beginning so therefore he does not exist in the true theological definition of existence. In other words, God lives outside of existence, He created existence. He is, in Jewish thought, number 8. The Talmud teaches in Arakin 13b that in the Holy of Holies near the Ark of the Covenant there was a harp with seven strings. When the Messiah comes the harp will have eight strings. The Messiah will be the eighth string of the harp. The Messiah, Jesus, lives outside of time and space. According to Psalms 12:1, this eighth string is our victory or our redemption.

This kachatsot this pause in time and space is the hamashechit. Those caught in the kachatsot or pause in time and space would cease to exist, they would become timeless they would shachat return to their primordial state a disembodied soul. Those firstborn not covered by the blood of the lamb would not be passed over by the kachatsot that followed in the wake of God passing by.

In a sense, the world is experiencing another kachatsot with this pandemic, a pause. Like the children of Israel, they were warned to stay in their homes when the last plague passed by. Churches are closed people don’t have their rituals, worship teams, liturgy to fall back on. They are now forced to confront God without the influence or interference of rituals, church buildings or worship teams. God has caused a kachatsot or pause to come upon the world as He is passing by. We would like to think that once this pandemic is passed life will return to normal. I don’t believe it will, not in a spiritual sense. After the Passover, the children of Israel left Egypt and entered a new era in their lives. Once this kachatsot ends, we will enter a new era in the life of the church.

Isaiah 55:6: “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:” After God restarts the world it will be different. Revival will have come. Not a revival in church numbers, increase in offerings or tithes, not standing room only in churches. Churches are closed right now, we cannot see the physical results of revival. This revival will be seen in the hearts of men. The revival is now, God is passing through, you are in a kachatsot, a pause shut away in your home, now is the time to reconnect with God.