Men Of Torah

This is the Lesson 0 for our new series, What About Me? We will be walking through the entire Apostolic Scriptures

As Peter and I finished Talmud Tractate Sotah we invited friends over for a siyum to hear Peter expound on what he learned over dinner.

Another excellent review by Joshua. From where does your reward come? From men, by showing off? From money, by being stingy? Follow along as we see the wisdom of Yeshua reflected in the Pirkei Avot and the real meaning of a "bad eye." (Matthew 6:1-34)

Joshua finished up the series with chapter 7, pointing out that Yeshua had returned to his opening topic of how we treat and judge others, bringing in the demonstrable measure for measure concept. The exciting nature of this class was the extraordinary number of Torah, Talmudic and Midrashic references that are nearly verbatim what the Master said. There was insightful discussion of dogs, pigs and pearls. Yeshua quotes Hillel the Elder, again bringing home Joshua's point that Yeshua is the pivot-point in history between the Zugot period and the Talmudic/Rabbinic periods. And Yeshua closes with a traditional Rabbinic expression (b. Moed Kattan) used to sever the relationship with a disciple as a form of discipline. (Matthew 7:1-29)

We had an extraordinarily great class reviewing the cross references and obvious consistency between Yeshua's "behavior high-mark," the Tanach, the Talmud and the Midrash.(Matthew 5:13-48)

Joshua's first class was focused on the Beatitudes. True to the theme of this series, he demonstrated Yeshua's consistency with the Tanach. Constantly bringing us back to the overriding issues of the day, baseless hatred and hypocrisy, Joshua demonstrated the logical thread tying the eight blessings together. (Matthew 5:1-12)

We closed our last class before summer break with a review of the High Priestly prayer in John 17. Yeshua requests seven things of the Father.

We dug into the second Oracle, chapters 12 - 14 looking for King Messiah again. This time the references to cleansing from sin, performed by G-d, were astounding.

We dug into the first Oracle, chapters 9 - 11 looking for King Messiah and time references to determine if the description was Second Temple or later.

We did our overview of the book of Zechariah and discussed some interesting things. Next week we will dive into the first of the two Oracles starting in chapter 9.

The third of three overview classes on the Minor Prophets. We reviewed the previous nine then reviewed Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

The second of three classes on the Minor Prophets. We took a quick review of CHAZAL and their thoughts on Yeshua HaTzadik, then reviewed Obadiah, Jonah and Micah.

The first of three classes on the Minor Prophets. This is an overview, with a quiz that will carry through to each class.

After completing the review of Messiah's identity, we relaxed and discussed what topics we want to review next.

Greg gave an overview of the WHO, WHAT and WHEN of Messiah from the Zohar and then I followed up with a proof of the resurrection to tie things up.

Greg gave an overview of the WHO, WHAT and WHEN of Messiah from Rabbi Chaim Kramer's book. Then Joshua reviewed the points raised in Tractate Sanhedrin 98a of the Babylonian Talmud.

Everyone jumped in as we started with RAMBAM's criteria for Mashiach and took off from there. Is He the Mashiach while away? Can He be Mashiach when He returns?

Starting with a tense crowd, we started this journey by listing out some characteristics of Mashiach from the Tanach, while deliberately avoiding the Apostolic Writings. Our goal was to remind ourselves that the Torah, then the Prophets and then the Writings are our foundation of faith in HaShem and His Mashiach. We reviewed his character, lineage, actions vs. results, relationships, death, time in history, teaching and advent(s). At the conclusion of class, we went around the room for perspectives.

Is Yeshua the long-awaited Jewish Messiah? In this intro class we listed as many questions as possible to prepare our follow-up classes.

Peter relates how the Lubavitcher Rebbe understood Vayikra 1:2 to be advice from G-d to draw closer to him. How do we take this momentary mountain-top experiences and make them permanent? Listen with us and Peter brings the drash.