Moshe Rabbeinu
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Please do NOT visit this
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Tanakh versions:
Throughout this site I will
use any of the following three versions of the TaNaKh: 1. “Jewish Publication Society” (JPS-1917),
2. “Sefaria.org” (SEF), and 3. “Mechon-Mamre.org” (MEC).
Colour coded details of
the - TaNaKh:
1. Torah = History &
Law, 2. Nevi’im =
The Prophets. 3. *Ketuvim = all
other Writings.
*The Ketuvim - Includes, Poetical
books - Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Megillot, or Scrolls - Song
of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes, and
Esther, prophecy of Daniel, and history of Ezra, Nehemiah, and
Chronicles I & II.
Please Note: Some
alterations have been made relating to ‘Names’ and ‘Attributes’ having been
corrected as it once was, pre the “Masoretic Text”.
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Remember the following three truth’s from our beloved Scriptures!
“Ye
shall NOT ADD TO THE WORD which I command you, neither shall ye diminish from it, that ye may keep the commandments of יְהוָה
אֱלֹהֵיכֶם (the LORD your Elo’lei’chem) which I command you”. Davarim -
Deuteronomy 4:2.
“This is My Name FOREVER, and this is My Memorial to ALL Generations”. Shemot - Exodus 3:15. (JPS).
“I am יְהוָה, that is My Name; and My glory
will I not give to another”. Yeshayahu - Isaiah 42:8. (JPS).
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With Rabbi, Dr. Reuven Ben
Avraham-Goossens, PhD.
“Be strong and courageous. Be careful to obey the entire Torah My servant Moshe has given you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Torah depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”
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Introduction:
The title of ‘Moshe Rabbeinu’ is an
honorific Hebrew title, meaning that he was ... “Moshe Our Teacher”. It is the most respectful manner to refer to מֹשֶׁה - Moshe - Moses, highlighting his role as
the primary teacher and lawgiver who transmitted אֱלֹהִים - Elohim’s (God’s) blessed Words to the Israelites.
The Life and Times
of Moshe:
Along with יְהוָה
אֱלֹהִים – the LORD Elohim (God),
blessed be His Sanctified Name, it is מֹשֶׁה - Moshe (Moses) who
dominates our beloved Torah. Acting at Elohim’s behest, and by the order
of אֱלֹהִים - Elohim he unleashes the ‘Ten Plagues’ against מִצְרַיִם - Mizrayim - Egypt.
It was the 10th plague, the death of the first born when the Pharaoh finally
allows their departure after that horrific last plague.
After the Israelites had
collected gold, silver and other precious items, as well all their needs, Moshe
leads the Hebrews out of slavery, from Egypt. Having departed, he
guides the Israelite’s for forty years in the wilderness, and at Mount Horeb ( known as the mountain of אֱלֹהִים, he brings down the law, and prepares us, the Israelite’s to enter the land
of Canaan. Without Moshe, there would be little apart from laws to write
about in the last four books of the blessed laws of אֱלֹהִים-
Elohim.
Looking back:
As we all know, Moshe was born
during the enslavement of us Israelites in Egypt, being during a terrible
period when the then Pharaoh decrees that all
male Hebrew infants are to be killed at birth. However his mother,
Yocheved, was desperate to save her son’s life, and when he was at a stage she
could no longer hide him, she placed him in reed basket and floats him in the
River Nile. However hearing a crying child, Pharaoh’s daughter who was bathing
in the river, pitied this crying infant and she adopts him. (Exodus 2:1-10).
1. And there went a
man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi
2. And the woman
conceived, and bore a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she
hid him three months.
3. And when she could
no-longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with
slime and with pitch; and she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags
by the river's brink.
5. And the daughter
of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the river; and her maidens walked along by the
river-side; and she saw the basket among the flags, and sent her handmaid to
fetch it.
6. And she opened it,
and saw it, even the child; and behold a boy that wept. And she had compassion
on him, and said: 'This is one of the Hebrews’ children.' Shemot - Exodus 2:1-3 & 5-6.
It surely is no coincidence that
the Hebrews’ future liberator is raised as an Egyptian prince. Had Moshe grown
up in slavery with his fellow Hebrews, he probably would not have developed the
vision, and courage to lead a revolt.
The Torah recorded just three
incidents in Moshe’ life before Elohim appoints him a
prophet. As a young man, outraged at seeing an Egyptian overseer beating a
Jewish slave, thus he kills the overseer. The next day, he tries to make peace
between two Hebrews who are fighting, but the aggressor takes umbrage and says:
“Do you mean to kill me as you killed that Egyptian?” Moshe immediately
understands that he is now in danger, although he had a high status, he thought
that undoubtedly he would be protected from any punishment for the murder of a
mere overseer, although the fact was that he killed, was actually carrying out
his duties from Pharaoh and he would brand Moshe being a rebel against the him.
The Pharaoh orders Moshe to be punished, and thus Moshe flees to Midian.
At this point, Moshe desired
nothing more than a peaceful interlude, but immediately he finds himself in
another fight. The seven daughters of the Midianite priest Reuel (also called Jethro) were being abused by Midianite male shepherds, and Moshe rises to their defence (Exodus 2:16-17).
The incidents are of course
related. In all three, Moshe shows a deep, almost obsessive commitment to
fighting injustice. Furthermore, his concerns are not parochial. He intervenes
when a non-Hebrew oppresses a Hebrew.
Moshe marries Tzipporah, one of Jethro, the Midianite priest’s daughters, and Moshe becomes the shepherd for her father
flock.
However, on a certain occasion,
when he had gone with his flock into the wilderness, suddenly an angel called
him to go up Mount Horeb, being the Mountain of יְהוָה - the LORD. Having arrived at
the appointed location אֱלֹהִים - Elohim appears to him in
the guise of a burning bush, yet was not consumed. The symbolism of the miracle
is powerful. In a world in which nature itself is worshiped, אֱלֹהִים shows that He rules over
it!
Once He has so effectively
elicited Moshe’s attention, אֱלֹהִים commands-even after
Moshe’s strenuous objections, he had to go back to Egypt along with his
brother, Acharon - Aaron, to make one simple revolutionary demand of Pharaoh: “Let my
people go.” Of course Pharaoh resisted Moshe’ petition, until Elohim wreaked the “Ten Plagues” upon Egypt. After the tenth plague, the death of
the ‘first born’, the children of Israel finally escaped after they collected
gifts from the Egyptian public of gold, silver and other item’s etc.
Months later, in the Sinai
Desert, Moshe climbs Mount Horeb, the Mountain of אֱלֹהִים יְהוָה – the LORD Elohim and comes down with the “Ten Commandments”, only to
discover that many of the Israelites, who thought that Moshe had died, engaged
in an orgy and were worshiping a ‘Golden Calf’. The episode is
paradigmatic: Only at the very moment אֱלֹהִים - Elohim or Moshe is doing something for them are they loyal believers, sadly
for man, NO. The instant Elohim’s or Moshe’ presence is not manifest, the children of
Israel revert to amoral, immoral, and even idolatrous behaviour. Like a true parent, Moshe rages at the Israelites when they sinned so
badly, but he never turns against them-even when אֱלֹהִים does. To Elohim’s wrathful declaration on one occasion that He will blot out the
Israelites and make of Moshe a new nation, but he answers, “Then blot me out
too” (Exodus 32:32).
The law that Moshe transmits to
the Israelites, is in the Torah and it embraces far more than the Ten
Commandments. In addition
to many ritual regulations, the Israelites
are instructed to love אֱלֹהִים as well as to be in awe
of Him, to love their neighbours as themselves, and to love the stranger-that is the non-Jew living among
them, as themselves as well.
The saddest event in Moshe’ life
might well be Elohim’s prohibiting him from entering the land of Israel. The
reason for this ban is explicitly connected to an episode in Numbers in which
the Israelites angrily demand that Moshe supply them with water. Elohim commands Moshe to assemble the community, “and before their very
eyes order the nearby rock to yield its water.” Fed up with the
Hebrews’ constant whining and complaining, he says to them instead: “Listen,
you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” Moshe then strikes
the rock twice with his rod, and water gushes out (Numbers 20:2-13). This event had nothing to do with the
striking the rock, no it had to do with something entirely different -, Visit the
Waters of Meribah that had everything to with
speaking the first to the rebels by correcting them first, then speaking about אֱלֹהִים.
Of course thee was something else
later altogether. Numbers 14:5 records that when ten of the twelve
spies returned from Canaan and gloomily predicted that the Hebrews would never
be able to conquer the land, the Israelites railed against Moshe. In response,
he seems to have had a mini-breakdown: “Then Moshe and Aaron fell on their
faces before all the assembled congregation of the Israelites.” The two
independent spies, Joshua and Caleb, both of whom rejected the
majority report; took over “and exhorted the whole Israelite community” (Numbers 14:7). Moshe told the Israelites that they were not
worthy to inherit the land, and would wander the wilderness for forty years
until the generation who had refused to enter Canaan had died, so that it would
be their children who would possess the land.
Later, in Deuteronomy, when Moshe
delivers his final summing-up to the Israelites, he refers back to this
episode: “When the Lord heard your loud complaint, He was angry. He vowed: “Not
one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land that I swore to
give to your fathers, none except Caleb.... Because of you, יְהוָה - the LORD was incensed with
me too, and He said: You shall not enter it either. Joshua ... who attends you,
he shall enter it” (1:34-38).
On the banks of the Jordan
River, in sight of the land, Moshe assembled the tribes. After recalling
their wanderings he delivered אֱלֹהִים - Elohim’s laws by which they must live in the land, sang a song of
praise and pronounced a blessing on the people, and passed his
authority to Joshua, under whom they would possess the land. Moshe then
went up Mount Nebo, looked over the Promised Land spread out
before him, and died, at the age of one hundred and twenty.
Despite a number of sad episodes,
Moshe impressed the monotheistic vision upon the Israelites with such
force that in the succeeding three millennia, the Israelites have never
confused the messenger with the Author of the message!
*The link to the vital question ‘what did Moshe do so very wrong’, use the
link further below!
He who is lovingly
known as “Moshe Rabbeinu” will always be greatly respected, as he is the only
human to ever have spoken directly with אֱלֹהִים יְהוָה - the LORD Elohim,
blessed be His Sanctified Name! Moshe is considered to be the Prophet of all
prophets!
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Please Note:
“hebraicstudies” links are located down the page!
In Conclusion, a
Question to Deepen the Conversation:
Which part of the Tanakh study, or possibly a particular line or
statement within it has touched you the most? And how do you feel
about spending more time studying our beloved Tanakh? I pray that you are doing
well as a faithful Hebrew, and אֱלֹהִים - Elohim willing you are upholding as many of our
blessed Mitzvoth’s?
Dear reader, please remember this, pray for peace and
solitude in your life, and then work on keeping as calm as possible and learn
to improve your life, for אֱלֹהִים - בָּרוּךְ
אֱלֹהִים - Bless Elohim, He is
always there and ready to help and guide you!
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PLEASE NOTE: If you need assistance in some way, just ask, I can email you special items to help you with whatever you may need, etc! Just email me (using the link further below) and I will send it to your email, without any follow up whatsoever, or any requests from me! The email is just down this page.
This site was originally for those who needed
to return to our blessed and wonderful faith, thus be wise and work on your
faith and pray at least two or of possible three times a day and always seek אֱלֹהִים - Elohim’s guidance!
But as you may have discovered it has become very much a teaching site!
Remember what אֱלֹהִים - Elohim, blessed be He, said the following, via a
number of our prophets...
“Return unto Me, and I will return
unto you, saith צְבָאוֹת- יְהוָה- the LORD of hosts”. Mal’a’chi -
Malachi 3:7. MEC).
And Remember
...
Enjoy your Sabbath Rest, Shabbat
Shalom!
אֲנִי יְהוָה
אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, בְּחֻקּוֹתַי
לֵכוּ; וְאֶת-מִשְׁפָּטַי
שִׁמְרוּ, וַעֲשׂוּ
אוֹתָם
וְאֶת-שַׁבְּתוֹתַי, קַדֵּשׁוּ; וְהָיוּ
לְאוֹת, בֵּינִי
וּבֵינֵיכֶם-לָדַעַת, כִּי
אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם
“I am אֱלֹהֵיכֶם יְהוָה
(the LORD your Elohchem); walk
in My statutes, and keep Mine ordinances, and do them; and hallow My
Sabbaths, and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I
am אֱלֹהֵיכֶם יְהוָה - YaHVaH your Eloheichem”.
Yechezkel - Ezekiel 20:19-20. (JPS).
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“Hebraic Studies” motto is as follows;
“The More Torah, the More Life”.
For our Elohim is the One who gave us our ... Life!
May the שָׁלוֹם - Shalom = Peace of צְבָאוֹת- יְהוָה= the LORD of hosts. be with
you, and please always uphold our blessed שַׁבָּת - Shabbat, as well as the ‘מוֹעֲדִים - Mo’a’dim - Feasts, and continue saying your
daily תְּפִלָּה - Te’fee’lah’s (Prayers) and
regular בְּרָכָה - Be’ra’chah’s (blessings) before food and drinks, etc!
Moshe’s other study is a very important read ... Waters of Meribah
שָׁלוֹם
עֲלֵיכֶם - Shalom Aleichem - Peace be with you!
Rabbi, Dr. Reuven Ben
Avraham-Goossens, PhD.
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