Demonstration, Discipline, Torah

Biblical Hebrew scholar, Jonathan Went did a good word study on the word for Torah. He ends his word study with proverb 29. "Where there is no revelation the people perish. But blessed is he that keeps the torah'.

Jonathan explains to you that the word for 'law' and 'revelation' are actually one and the same. He mentions how the word torah derives from yarah and that relates to the spiritual law in my humble view. The first letter of Yarah as the letter 'y', yodh and that is a picture of a hand.

Like when the mother offers the hand to the child and says 'come this way'. Or as the LORD said earlier this morning. 'Come Along'.

Leading the children by the hand, in harmony with the spiritual law and in so doing revelation comes to be. Holding a hand, can stop a child jumping in a river, or the deep end at the swimming pool before they can swim on their own.

The scholar says 'How much better to be taught by pointing than by poking, by demonstration of the hand than the discipline of the rod'.

Is there any true discipline, without the hand that holds the hand of the child when crossing the road? Why do people associate discipline with the rod? Do scholars have a discipline? Yes, of course. They are disciplined by their logic and reason, to impart information in a particular way that they deem acceptable to academic minds.

The Dead Sea Scrolls also speaks about discipline, in terms of accepting wisdom's corrections. If people lack discipline, and harmony with the spiritual law, how can they possibly have the understanding of the revelation? People have to live it to truly understand it. Hence, why the hand is important to help the people until they do begin to live in harmony with creation.

Without it, they will perish, just like nations have perished before.

One can demonstrate with discipline, and discipline is part of integrity, its all part of leading by example.

The true meaning of Torah to me is to do with life experience and not a text. Although the text does make record of the life. I hope that makes sense to you. Down the ages in every culture, people were always taught orally. Text books are quite a recent invention. In fact, it is not so long ago, that it was even illegal to own a copy of the bible.

So the scribes considered themselves to be truly blessed, to be able to make the records of events and teachings that could be written down. Another reason why oral teaching was important, was so that the teacher could explain the meaning, to ensure there was no misinterpretation of the message. In other words keeping the firing of the arrow straight, to ensure it reached its target.

ELIAKIM JOSEPH-SOPHIA

1. http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/wordstudies/torah.htm