Basically for Jews

[Ebionite]

They'll all be reenacted (or reattached/grafted on if broken off); which is to say they'll all be redeemed, technically reborn, when the the Branch of the Kingdom (the Nazarene נצר) comes (so to say).

And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.
Revelation 5:5

For I [will be] unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, [even] I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue [him].
I will go [and] return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.
Hosea 5:14-15

And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.
Zechariah 3:4

Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they [are] men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH.
Zechariah 3:8

He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
Isaiah 53:11

 

[YoursTrue]

It might be good to remember that St. Paul also preferred to follow Jesus. 2 Timothy 2:15 is not necessarily exclusive to preferring to follow Jesus. It could even be though of a part and parcel of the journey.

. . . You do realize Jesus was born the actual proto-archetype of all who are protected merely ritually by the prophylactic guardianship of the blood of circumcision. I didn't think anyone could read these things and not know they refer, directly, to the only person ever born from the literal removal of testosterone from his conception and pregnancy.



John

It's a bit too deep for me. I am just happy to know and understand what I know now about Jesus. His lifeforce came from heaven. Thank you for your reply.

 

[dybmh]

The Wogeo say that penis-bleeding and menstruation have similar purposes: both are to remove sexual contamination by the opposite sex, women lose it by the monthly period, men by penis-bleeding.​

​

Cambridge Professor Gilbert Lewis, Day of Shining Red.​

We here dealt with this about five years ago in a thread called Menarche as Men's Archetype (edited into an essay). Professor Lewis says:

Wogeo men and women bleed; then they both must go into retirement, keep prohibitions for a time---both bleed to remove defilement by the other sex . . . bleeding is intended to remove the defilement of sexual intercourse . . ..​

​

Ibid, p. 133.​

The Jewish anthropologist Eric Kline Silverman says:

It seems difficult not to discern a similarity between the purification ceremony and circumcision. Both rites represent male menstruation. . . circumcision created a man who was a better woman.​

​

From Abraham to America: A History of Jewish Circumcision, p. 80-81.​

​

But the pièce de ré·sis·tance comes from Col. R.B. Thieme Jr., in his book, The Integrity of God, p. 58-64. Col. Thieme explains how menstruation, specifically meiosis and polar body, purifies the ovum from ha-adam's sin, so that if the ovum isn't re-contaminated by the seed of the male ---i.e., the seed the blood of circumcision acts as a spermicide to kill in order to guard Jewish identity ----then after menstruation (meiotic cleansing) the female ovum is free to birth a human being who's as immortal as were all organisms that lived prior to the sexual revolution:

Death did not appear simultaneously with life. This is one of the most important and profound statements in all of biology. At the very least it deserves repetitions: Death is not inextricably intertwined with the definition of life. . . Death of the organism through senescence ---programmed death----- makes its appearance in evolution at about the same time that sexual reproduction appears.​

​

Professor of Biology, William R. Clark, Sex and the Origins of Death, p. 54, 63.​

As noted by Professors Silverman, and Lewis, circumcision represents something like male menstruation. It cleanses the male seed by cutting off the sinful element that would recontaminate the female seed that's already cleansed through female menstruation (meiosis and polar body). The female doesn't have to symbolize menstruation ritually since she menstruates naturally at puberty. Which is to point out that the female body is both the default body in the womb (prior to phallic sex) such that without testosterone, which is the contaminant weeded out by male menstruation, the ovum would develop every time into the natural, original, female, body, possessed by ha-adam, the original human, prior to Genesis 2:21, when the desecration of the natural body occurred. It occurred in the garden just as it does in the womb ---when testes and a delivery mechanism for them is added to the original human's body after some of the original flesh is removed to clone Eve as an identical twin/facsimile of the original human's original body.

Btw, after the Wogeo men bleed their penis (hafat dam brit), guess what they do with it? They place it in a koteka, a phallocrypt, a coffin for the dead. Judaism is wiser. After bleeding it to death they wrap it like a mummy. They know it will be reborn to father Jewish offspring having been purified by the ultimate cleansing process.

​

Death is the paradoxical agent of Life: a salvific-messianic-act with human love at the center. . . Not only can physical death help atone for sins committed on earth, but a perfect martyrdom has the singular power to repair spiritual realities in the divine realm. . . Only in this state could the soul be released from its earthly prison ---whether to ascend to its source in heaven, or become a shrine for the holy Spirit.​

​

Professor Michael Fishbane, The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism, p. 116 & 126-127.​

The burial cloth of the Jewish organ is used as a shrine for the holy spirit in that it often ornaments the wimpel wrapped around the dead letter of the Torah scroll, which, the Torah organ, will itself be resurrected from its own circumcision in order to birth a new covenant not subject to rescinding, annulling, or death of any sort.




John

None of this changes that women can convert without any need for blood. That simple fact refutes any claim in the magical properties of blood which you seem to be seeking.

 

[John D. Brey]

None of this changes that women can convert without any need for blood. That simple fact refutes any claim in the magical properties of blood which you seem to be seeking.

A woman can convert without blood being drawn from her reproductive organ by a man/mohel, since, hell, as Alice Cooper crooned, only women bleed . . . by God's design . . . rather than with the motive and help of a mohel. ------Hell no I'm not saying go ask Alice. He didn't sing the last part anyway. But it's true anyhow. By not recognizing any of this, Jews prove that they're the same ole girl they used to be. But that's another song altogether, lionized, so to say, in Mohel California by the Eagles.



John

 

[rosends]

A woman can convert without blood being drawn from her reproductive organ by a man/mohel, since, hell, as Alice Cooper crooned, only women bleed . . . by God's design . . . rather than with the motive and help of a mohel. ------Hell no I'm not saying go ask Alice. He didn't sing the last part anyway. But it's true anyhow. By not recognizing any of this, Jews prove that they're the same ole girl they used to be. But that's another song altogether, lionized, so to say, in Mohel California by the Eagles.



John

so a post menopausal woman can't convert? Or a woman who, for whatever reasons doesn't have regular periods isn't actually Jewish until her menses appear?

 

[John D. Brey]

None of this changes that women can convert without any need for blood. That simple fact refutes any claim in the magical properties of blood which you seem to be seeking.

The third stage of the circumcision procedure is called metzitzah, or "sucking." The mohel briefly extracts blood from the child's wound, traditionally using his mouth. He then expectorates the blood into a goblet, which, as I discuss shortly, the boy and his parents sip.​

​

Professor Eric Kline Silverman, From Abraham to America: A history of Jewish Circumcision. ​

​

After performing metsitsah, sucking blood from the circumcised penis, the mohel would spit some blood into the cup of wine from which he would place drops on the child's lips.​

​

Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America, p. 63.​

​

When we see, then, the wine being reserved for the infant to drink – a mirror image, so to speak, of the blood being sucked from him at the very same time --- and when we observe also the content of the extended prayer that adds Ezekiel’s words (line 55-56): “`I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood; and I said to you: `In your blood, live’; I said to you: `In your blood, live’” (Ezek. 16:6), we cannot help but notice a certain ritual integrity centering on the symbols of blood.​

​

Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, Covenant of Blood. p. 93.​

​

These Jewish practices might be called the mirror image of the Eucharist.​

​

David Biale, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians, p. 98-99.​

​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

so a post menopausal woman can't convert? Or a woman who, for whatever reasons doesn't have regular periods isn't actually Jewish until her menses appear?

Jewish males, for various reasons, weren't always ritually circumcised (but they're still Jews). Which implies that there's a symbol created by a sacred ritual, and a reality that the symbol is designed to reflect in some manner. The same concept would apply to menopausal women, except that by bringing them up, you open up a significant difference between hafat dam brit (or the blood of circumcision in general) versus female menopause. Menopausal women can't birth offspring. So when the blood flow ceases, so does the need to cleanse their ovum from the sin of ha-dam. After menopause we don't worry about them bringing sinners or heathen (goyim) into the world to raise more Cain.

The significance of this fact is that meiosis and polar body (the purpose for menopause) are real, biological, purifying, processes, that truly purify the ovum (really and not just ritually), so that if it could begin to split, without the male seed initiating that process, the person who was conceived that way would literally, not religiously, spiritually, or ritually, but really, be immortal. In effect he would be a living stem-cell without the processes that cause senescence and aging.

Accidental cell death was around from the very first appearance of anything we would call life. Death of the organism through senescence ---programmed death----- makes its appearance in evolution at about the same time that sexual reproduction appears.​

​

Professor William R. Clark, Sex and the Origins of Death. p. 62-63.​

​

Embryonic stem cells develop when the female ovum is fertilized by the male sperm. The early cell-division creates what are known as "totipotent" (or pluripotent) cells. These cells can become any specific cell in the human body. As cell-division continues, the stem cells lose the ability to become any cell. They also only then develop the death-gene that causes aging and death. The cells, after a particular number of divisions, become multipotent cells that have specific instructions about what kind of cell they can become. The female ova, post meiosis and polar body, pre-fertilization, are "omnipotent" stem cells. They're immortal, since up until a certain point in the developing fetus, senescence and mortality don't kick in. Professor Clark, who's a Phd biologist and an atheist points this out.

Furthermore, we know that it's the male seed that both causes the initial cell-division to start, and also causes the start of aging and inescapable programmed death, since prior to the evolution of the fake-male, the facade of masculinity, and its phallic-sexuality, cell-division as replication and reproduction produced immortal offspring who didn't age, or die of senescence (some such organism still remain today). The Bible gets it right. Life was immortal until sex.

Which leads back into your paralleling of menopause and hafat dam brit (more generally the blood of circumcision).

After meiosis and polar body, the female ovum is the only cell in the human body that no longer contains the aging gene. Stem-cells take advantage of that fact, except that the ovum must be fertilized to produce stem-cells, such that you have to get to them early before the immortality of the cell is lost through further cell-division and development. What this means is that female menstruation is a true, biological, cleansing process. It's a biological mikveh. Once the cell goes through the mikveh it's cleansed of ha-adam's sin, the sin related to sex, and is ready for the next sin, the next act of sex.

Male circumcision blood is a ritual cleansing only, unless some Jewish maiden, and her bridegroom, suddenly announce that she's become pregnant during the betrothal without any sexual shenanigans taking place behind closed doors or in secret. In that case, every other case of circumcsion blood (and naturally there are cases and cases of it), though purely ritualistic/symbolic, becomes a sign אות of a reality which, after the actuality, retroactively activates the utter of reality of every single case of circumcision blood ever drawn.

Therein circumcision blood, male menstruation, becomes as real, genuinely efficacious, as female menstruation, since then the Jewish maiden's ovum begins to split on its own such that the fidelity and gentlemanliness of her circumcised bridegroom shines a light on his Jewishness, and particularly that his male organ was marked with the sign that something so unheard of (Isa. 66:8-9) isn't just a remote possibility of occurrence in billions of births, but that it will eventually occur, and that occurrence will be to a Jewish maiden with a circumcised bridegroom.

Circumcision marks the fact that female menstruation was designed for a real purpose. The ovum is pure, has passed through the mikveh (after meiosis and polar body), for a real reason. And the real reason is related to a Jewish maiden, not a Gentile maiden, so that when it does occurs, to a Jewish maiden, whose bridegroom is marked with the mark signifying the male side is purified, i.e., the blood of circumcision, then, retroactively, every act of ritual, symbolic, circumcision, will become as real as the fact that a Jewish maiden's ovum began to split, divide, after meiosis and polar body (menstruation), before phallic-sex, and thus in line with the idea of the blood of circumcision representing the purification of the firstborn through elimination of the flesh, and seed, that caused the human race to start raising Cain in the first place.



John

 

[rosends]

The third stage of the circumcision procedure is called metzitzah, or "sucking." The mohel briefly extracts blood from the child's wound, traditionally using his mouth. He then expectorates the blood into a goblet, which, as I discuss shortly, the boy and his parents sip.​

​

Professor Eric Kline Silverman, From Abraham to America: A history of Jewish Circumcision. ​

​

After performing metsitsah, sucking blood from the circumcised penis, the mohel would spit some blood into the cup of wine from which he would place drops on the child's lips.​

​

Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America, p. 63.​

​

When we see, then, the wine being reserved for the infant to drink – a mirror image, so to speak, of the blood being sucked from him at the very same time --- and when we observe also the content of the extended prayer that adds Ezekiel’s words (line 55-56): “`I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood; and I said to you: `In your blood, live’; I said to you: `In your blood, live’” (Ezek. 16:6), we cannot help but notice a certain ritual integrity centering on the symbols of blood.​

​

Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, Covenant of Blood. p. 93.​

​

These Jewish practices might be called the mirror image of the Eucharist.​

​

David Biale, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians, p. 98-99.​

​

John

if you are going to reference a particular and very limited tradition you should explain that this isn't a current or even common practice

Drinking blood during Milah

According to what I have read, there are problems with ingesting human blood. Questions like this indicate that mar'is ayin applies. During metzitzah in a circumcision, the mohel takes some blood ...

judaism.stackexchange.com

 

[rosends]

Jewish males, for various reasons, weren't always ritually circumcised (but they're still Jews). Which implies that there's a symbol created by a sacred ritual, and a reality that the symbol is designed to reflect in some manner. The same concept would apply to menopausal women, except that by bringing them up, you open up a significant difference between hafat dam brit (or the blood of circumcision in general) versus female menopause. Menopausal women can't birth offspring. So when the blood flow ceases, so does the need to cleanse their ovum from the sin of ha-dam. After menopause we don't worry about them bringing sinners or heathen (goyim) into the world to raise more Cain.

The significance of this fact is that meiosis and polar body (the purpose for menopause) are real, biological, purifying, processes, that truly purify the ovum (really and not just ritually), so that if it could begin to split, without the male seed initiating that process, the person who was conceived that way would literally, not religiously, spiritually, or ritually, but really, be immortal. In effect he would be a living stem-cell without the processes that cause senescence and aging.

Accidental cell death was around from the very first appearance of anything we would call life. Death of the organism through senescence ---programmed death----- makes its appearance in evolution at about the same time that sexual reproduction appears.​

​

Professor William R. Clark, Sex and the Origins of Death. p. 62-63.​

​

Embryonic stem cells develop when the female ovum is fertilized by the male sperm. The early cell-division creates what are known as "totipotent" (or pluripotent) cells. These cells can become any specific cell in the human body. As cell-division continues, the stem cells lose the ability to become any cell. They also only then develop the death-gene that causes aging and death. The cells, after a particular number of divisions, become multipotent cells that have specific instructions about what kind of cell they can become. The female ova, post meiosis and polar body, pre-fertilization, are "omnipotent" stem cells. They're immortal, since up until a certain point in the developing fetus, senescence and mortality don't kick in. Professor Clark, who's a Phd biologist and an atheist points this out.

Furthermore, we know that it's the male seed that both causes the initial cell-division to start, and also causes the start of aging and inescapable programmed death, since prior to the evolution of the fake-female, the facade of masculinity, and its phallic-sexuality, cell-division as replication and reproduction produced immortal offspring who didn't age, or die of senescence (some such organism still remain today). The Bible gets it right. Life was immortal until sex.

Which leads back into your paralleling of menopause and hafat dam brit (more generally the blood of circumcision).

After meiosis and polar body, the female ovum is the only cell in the human body that no longer contains the aging gene. Stem-cells take advantage of that fact, except that the ovum must be fertilized to produce stem-cells, such that you have to get to them early before the immortality of the cell is lost through further cell-division and development. What this means is that female menstruation is a true, biological, cleansing process. It's a biological mikveh. Once the cell goes through the mikveh it's cleansed of ha-adam's sin, the sin related to sex, and is ready for the next sin, the next act of sex.

Male circumcision blood is a ritual cleansing only, unless some Jewish maiden, and her bridegroom, suddenly announce that she's become pregnant during the betrothal without any sexual shenanigans taking place behind closed doors or in secret. In that case, every other case of circumcsion blood (and naturally there are cases and cases of it), though purely ritualistic/symbolic, becomes a sign אות of a reality which, after the actuality, retroactively activates the utter of reality of every single case of circumcision blood ever drawn.

Therein circumcision blood, male menstruation, becomes as real, genuinely efficacious, as female menstruation, since then the Jewish maiden's ovum begins to split on its own such that the fidelity and gentlemanliness of her circumcised bridegroom shines a light on his Jewishness, and particularly that his male organ was marked with the sign that something so unheard of (Isa. 66:8-9) isn't just a remote possibility of occurrence in billions of births, but that it will eventually occur, and that occurrence will be to a Jewish maiden with a circumcised bridegroom.

Circumcision marks the fact that female menstruation was designed for a real purpose. The ovum is pure, has passed through the mikveh (after meiosis and polar body), for a real reason. And the real reason is related to a Jewish maiden, not a Gentile maiden, so that when it does occurs, to a Jewish maiden, whose bridegroom is marked with the mark signifying the male side is purified, i.e., the blood of circumcision, then, retroactively, every act of ritual, symbolic, circumcision, will become as real as the fact that a Jewish maiden's ovum began to split, divide, after meiosis and polar body (menstruation), and in line with the idea of the blood of circumcision representing the purification of the firstborn through elimination of the flesh, and seed, that caused the human race to start raising Cain in the first place.



John

great. Thanks for not answering the question.

 

[John D. Brey]

great. Thanks for not answering the question.

Well I took a stab or poke at it. And surely you could agree I at least began a brief, rambling, preamble to an answer.



John

 

[dybmh]

A woman can convert without blood being drawn from her reproductive organ by a man/mohel, since, hell, as Alice Cooper crooned, only women bleed . . . by God's design . . . rather than with the motive and help of a mohel. ------Hell no I'm not saying go ask Alice. He didn't sing the last part anyway. But it's true anyhow. By not recognizing any of this, Jews prove that they're the same ole girl they used to be. But that's another song altogether, lionized, so to say, in Mohel California by the Eagles.

If so, then the conversion would sync up with their cycle. This has become ridiculous. I will not be replying further on this topic.

 

[John D. Brey]

If so, then the conversion would sync up with their cycle. This has become ridiculous. I will not be replying further on this topic.

. . . Doesn't "conversion" mark, celebrate, something that began long before the formal conversion ceremony? Do you see people deciding to become Jewish and becoming Jewish the same hour or day (Isa. 66:7-8)? Or does conversion ritualize the completion of a process that may have been evolving for years, decades, or longer?

In a Christianized way of thinking, hafat dam brit only symbolizes what takes place in the heart and soul of a person who is now ceremonializing what may have been in the heart and soul for a long time.

What I'm saying is that hafat dam brit, or circumcision in general, is a sign (Genesis 17:11) of the actuality it signifies. Menstruation is not a sign. It's the reality of a woman's ability to put her ovum through a purifying mikveh after which it can birth an actual Jew if it begins dividing without an uncircumcised seed bollixing up the process.

A Jewish maiden's ovum actually went through the mikveh of menstruation and then began dividing without being re-contaminated with a testosterone-delivery-mechanism (an actual rather than ritually castrated pregnancy) around the time BC transitioned to AD. Fair enough it's only happened once. But that one time has changed the world.




John

 

[John D. Brey]

The author of these words is making themself into a god and speaking on behalf of the Almighty without any authority to do so. It's an unanswered question. That's not law coming from the Almighty. When has the Almighty ever given a law in the form of a question? It's an attempt for seeking a loophole.

When you ask if the Almighty has ever given a law in the form of a question, we can say with some authority that he's given multiple commandments as a "decree" חק, and sometimes as as a "sign" אות, as well as numerous commandments that are both a decree and a sign (the commandment to circumcise being one of the commandments that's both a decree חק and a sign אות).

In Judaism, a "decree" חק, is a commandment who's purpose and meaning isn't understood; they're sometimes called "irrational" or "supra-rational" directives since the deeper meaning of the commandment isn't given and doesn't appear to make sense. Jews are taught that their only concern in such cases ("decrees" and "sign-decrees") is obedience, not understanding, " . . . so do not ask `why' about circumcision" (Ibn Ezra).

Rashi writes, "Satan and the nations of the world cause grief to the Jewish people, saying, `What is this commandment? What purpose does it have' . . . [God says] `It is My personal decree. you don't have permission to question it' . . . Rashi defines chukim (supra-rational commands): `Things which the evil inclination and the nations of the world argue against ----such as eating pig and wearing shatnez---because they have no reason.'​

​

The Gutnick Edition Chumash, Numbers 19.​

Every serious student of Judaism is aware that circumcision is both one of these supra-rational decrees (whose deeper meaning isn't known, ala why can't Jews eat pork?) and also a "sign" (Genesis 17:11), which, a "sign," is a visual or tactile image that in some way relates to what it signifies, " . . . the Hebrew word ot [sign] used by the priestly author to describe the covenant `sign’ of circumcision (Gen. 17:11) is used elsewhere iconically. That is to say, `it has properties that make it appropriate for the content which it signifies’” (Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman).

So, finally, yes, absolutely! -----The Almighty has given Israel multiple commandments as decrees חקים and as signs אתת which any normal person would question. Ibn Ezra, and he's not alone, says if you're a Jew don't. Don't ask for the answer to the question of what does this commandment, not to eat pork, or wear wool and linen blend, or cut off skin from your penis, means?

Now to the question of refuting your debasement of St. Paul where you claim he makes himself a god with no authority to do so.

The serious student of Judaism is aware that God doesn't leave the "decrees" חקים and "signs" אתת dangling as though Jews will have to perform them for all eternity without ever knowing the meaning (as though Jews will always be unwitting servants of things they don't understand). God is clear that there will come a time when a certain man, in the likeness of a second Moses, i.e., Messiah, will himself give the meaning of all the decrees given throughout the Tanakh: "Search the Tanakh; for in it ye think ye have eternal life: and it is that which testify of me. And yet ye will not come to me that ye might have life" (John 5:39-40).

Why would they and Saul of Tarsus not come that they might have life? ------Because, as they've been taught by Rashi, Ibn Ezra, the Chazal, Chachamin, and all the sages of every age, and rightly so, they're to obey the decrees and signs without questioning until Messiah comes to reveal the meaning of the "decrees" חקים and the "signs" אתת.

St. Paul knows something prematurely (1 Corinthians 15:8) so far as Judaism is concerned. He knows that God worked a paradox into the decrees חקים and signs אתת that relate to Israel's failure to observe the arrival of the Jewish Messiah. St. Paul knows that the Tanakh says Messiah will reveal the meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת, but that nothing in the Tanakh reveals how Israel will know the arrival of the Messiah (through whom they will receive the meaning of the decrees חקים and the signs אתת)?

St. Paul knows the great Mystery that the miraculous birth, life, teaching, and premature death, of Messiah, is the full meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת (John 5:39-40), but that that creates the conundrum that Jews, by blindly obeying the decrees חקים and signs אתת, as commanded by God (until Messiah reveals their meaning), have no way to know that the way they will know Messiah has arrived is only by knowing the meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת, which can't be known, until Messiah has already been miraculously conceived and born, lived, taught, and died prematurely. Israel can't know Messiah has arrived, and thus can't receive the meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת, until they know Messiah is dead (the sign אתת of his death being the key that opens up the decreed חק nature of his birth, life, and teaching). Israel can't know Messiah has arrived until they know he's died, and can't know he's died until they know he's Messiah?



John

 

[rosends]

When you ask if the Almighty has ever given a law in the form of a question, we can say with some authority that he's given multiple commandments as a "decree" חק, and sometimes as as a "sign" אות, as well as numerous commandments that are both a decree and a sign (the commandment to circumcise being one of the commandments that's both a decree חק and a sign אות).

In Judaism, a "decree" חק, is a commandment who's purpose and meaning isn't understood; they're sometimes called "irrational" or "supra-rational" directives since the deeper meaning of the commandment isn't given and doesn't appear to make sense. Jews are taught that their only concern in such cases ("decrees" and "sign-decrees") is obedience, not understanding, " . . . so do not ask `why' about circumcision" (Ibn Ezra).

Rashi writes, "Satan and the nations of the world cause grief to the Jewish people, saying, `What is this commandment? What purpose does it have' . . . [God says] `It is My personal decree. you don't have permission to question it' . . . Rashi defines chukim (supra-rational commands): `Things which the evil inclination and the nations of the world argue against ----such as eating pig and wearing shatnez---because they have no reason.'​

​

The Gutnick Edition Chumash, Numbers 19.​

Every serious student of Judaism is aware that circumcision is both one of these supra-rational decrees (whose deeper meaning isn't known, ala why can't Jews eat pork?) and also a "sign" (Genesis 17:11), which, a "sign," is a visual or tactile image that in some way relates to what it signifies, " . . . the Hebrew word ot [sign] used by the priestly author to describe the covenant `sign’ of circumcision (Gen. 17:11) is used elsewhere iconically. That is to say, `it has properties that make it appropriate for the content which it signifies’” (Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman).

So, finally, yes, absolutely! -----The Almighty has given Israel multiple commandments as decrees חקים and as signs אתת which any normal person would question. Ibn Ezra, and he's not alone, says if you're a Jew don't. Don't ask for the answer to the question of what does this commandment, not to eat pork, or wear wool and linen blend, or cut off skin from your penis, means?

Now to the question of refuting your debasement of St. Paul where you claim he makes himself a god with no authority to do so.

The serious student of Judaism is aware that God doesn't leave the "decrees" חקים and "signs" אתת dangling as though Jews will have to perform them for all eternity without ever knowing the meaning (as though Jews will always be unwitting servants of things they don't understand). God is clear that there will come a time when a certain man, in the likeness of a second Moses, i.e., Messiah, will himself give the meaning of all the decrees given throughout the Tanakh: "Search the Tanakh; for in it ye think ye have eternal life: and it is that which testify of me. And yet ye will not come to me that ye might have life" (John 5:39-40).

Why would they and Saul of Tarsus not come that they might have life? ------Because, as they've been taught by Rashi, Ibn Ezra, the Chazal, Chachamin, and all the sages of every age, and rightly so, they're to obey the decrees and signs without questioning until Messiah comes to reveal the meaning of the "decrees" חקים and the "signs" אתת.

St. Paul knows something prematurely (1 Corinthians 15:8) so far as Judaism is concerned. He knows that God worked a paradox into the decrees חקים and signs אתת that relate to Israel's failure to observe the arrival of the Jewish Messiah. St. Paul knows that the Tanakh says Messiah will reveal the meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת, but that nothing in the Tanakh reveals how Israel will know the arrival of the Messiah (through whom they will receive the meaning of the decrees חקים and the signs אתת)?

St. Paul knows the great Mystery that the miraculous birth, life, teaching, and premature death, of Messiah, is the full meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת (John 5:39-40), but that that creates the conundrum that Jews, by blindly obeying the decrees חקים and signs אתת, as commanded by God (until Messiah reveals their meaning), have no way to know that the way they will know Messiah has arrived is only by knowing the meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת, which can't be known, until Messiah has already been miraculously conceived and born, lived, taught, and died prematurely. Israel can't know Messiah has arrived, and thus can't receive the meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת, until they know Messiah is dead (the sign אתת of his death being the key that opens up the decreed חק nature of his birth, life, and teaching). Israel can't know Messiah has arrived until they know he's died, and can't know he's died until they know he's Messiah?



John

Can you show me where, in the biblical text, there is an explicit assertion that circumcision is a chok? While I know that some interpret the medrash Shmot Rabbah 19:5 as connecting two specific mitzvot as chukim (one being milah), that is not exactly what the medrash says and, by the way, it's a medrash, so its labels are not generally taken literally -- the medrash explains that the circumcision was necessary to be given permission to eat. Also I know that the Beit Haleivi explained that the entire torah is a chok but I don't think anyone would apply the title of a formal chok to every mitzvah because of that. Additionally, there are more than enough commentators who work to present reasons so they must not view it as a chok.

The Ibn Ezra you quote is not properly presented. In 17:1, God gives a commandment to Abraham to circumcize and then (accordinf to the Ibn Ezra) tells HIM, specifically, not to ask why (the words mean "that he won't ask why circumcision"). This doesn't make the over arching commandment to all others (presented in Vayikra 12) as a chok.

So maybe a posuk would be helpful. Thanks.

 

[John D. Brey]

"I will transfer to you an existing covenant." Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch.

You are saying: "rescinded, annuled" and claimng this is what the Rabbi literally wrote.

The Rabbi actually wrote: "transfer an existing covenant".

An annulled covenant is not an existing covenant.

We both agree that Rashi says the Hebrew implies the covenant might be the transfer נתן of an existing covenant rather than the creation ברא of a new covenant. And you point out that an "annulled covenant" isn't, technically speaking, an "existing covenant." And I agree. Which leads the serious exegete to question precisely what a "covenant" ברית is if can be transferred נתן from its initial recipient to someone else? Precisely, who was the initial person the covenant ברית was enacted with such that it's now being transferred, after the fact, to Abraham?

Throughout this thread, and others, I've implied that the initial enactment of the covenant ברית between God and mankind was ratified when God created ברא ha-adam already pregnant prior to the desecration of that pregnant body (Genesis 2:21) and thereafter the misuse of the desecrated body afforded by the nature of the desecration---vis-à-vis the act that conceived Cain as the ******* firstborn usurping the original pregnancy of the true firstborn.

In this context, the original covenant ברית is the original firstborn ראש, or head ראשׁ, of all who will subsequently be born. In Hebrew this "firstborn" or "head," of all who will subsequently be born, is called the "rosh" ראש, represented by the Hebrew letter "reish" ר, that is (the letter reish is) an emblem of this "firstborn" or "head" of all who will be born after him. I might be forgiven for belaboring this point if someone knows that it's establishing the foundation of the meaning of the original covenant ברית between God and mankind.

בית = house.
ר = firstborn or head.
ב–ר–ית = the house of the firstborn (our "house" with the rosh/reish in the belly if the house).

Where the Hebrew letters are recognized as sacred-glyphs, we see that the Hebrew word for "covenant" ברית is a hiero-glyph of the "head" ר or "firstborn" ר, hidden inside the "house" בית, in the very "beginning" ב–ראש–ית. Someone will ask why we should say the "head" or "firstborn" of humanity is "hidden" in the "beginning"? ----Well . . . did you notice that the beginning word in the Tanakh בראשית, i.e., the word "beginning" בראשית, has the "head" ראש hidden in the belly of the word "beginning" ב–ראש–ית ?

If the original covenant ב–ר–ית between God and mankind is the firstborn ר created ברא in the belly of ha-adam, then when the covenant is annulled, or rescinded, after the fact of the desecration of the pregnancy and the subsequent act of conceiving a new firstborn of humanity, ala Cain, then the annulment is the abortion of the covenant so that unless God has conceived a way to re-conceive of the conception and birth of the aborted firstborn ---who becomes the lithopedion represented by the tablets of the Law---then the stony heart of man and Judaism will never become a new covenant in the living flesh of the original firstborn aborted in the beginning.

To make a long thread short (or shorter), the original covenant, the true firstborn of humanity, gets aborted, the covenant rescinded, such that God uses the DNA of humanity as though it were Noah's ark, or even the Ark of the Covenant, where God protects the true firstborn, become lithopedion, until such a time that the original covenant, transferred נתן to Noah, and then to Abraham, and then to Moses, and David . . . finally, at the end of the transferring, is transformed, from the lithopedion, the stony heart of the Law, into a child, in the womb of a Jewish maiden, who, like ha-adam before her, has no reason whatsoever (Isaiah 66:7-9) to expect to be there: the firstborn is hidden in the beginning ב and hidden to Judaism in the end ת too, since the end letter, the tav, in the sacred script, is the sign of the death of Messiah, who is, was, and will ever be, the firstborn ר hidden in the beginning בית, and the firstborn hidden in the end, the final letter, the ktav ivry tav, which is a Latin cross, which is supposed to key Israel, Judaism, to the fact that Messiah has come, gone, and is on his way back again, to save them after he's gathered up all the Gentiles he could claim (Isaiah 11:10-11).



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Can you show me where, in the biblical text, there is an explicit assertion that circumcision is a chok?

Off the top of my head there's the fact that in Exodus 12, circumcision is part of the decree חק of Passover:

And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance חקת of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof but every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou has circumcised him, then he shall eat thereof.​

​

Exodus 12:33-34.​

Not only does the language seem to imply that circumcision is seminal to the Passover ordinance, but the Talmud, with other midrashim, implies circumcision blood is mingled with the blood of the lamb placed on the doorposts, thereby codifying circumcision as part and parcel of the decree (ordinance) of Passover.

Every Jewish sage is aware that circumcision is a sign. And they all scratch their heads about the verbiage in Genesis 17 where God says to be circumcised, and then that circumcision will be the sign of being circumcised: perhaps the greatest tautology ever written. But it's not a tautology. Tautologies are what occurs when something important is hidden in the grammar. And what's hidden in Genesis 17:10-11 is about the most important thing in the Bible.

While I know that some interpret the medrash Shmot Rabbah 19:5 as connecting two specific mitzvot as chukim (one being milah), that is not exactly what the medrash says and, by the way, it's a medrash, so its labels are not generally taken literally -- the medrash explains that the circumcision was necessary to be given permission to eat. Also I know that the Beit Haleivi explained that the entire torah is a chok but I don't think anyone would apply the title of a formal chok to every mitzvah because of that. Additionally, there are more than enough commentators who work to present reasons so they must not view it as a chok.

I would totally subscribe to the idea that the entire Torah/Tanakh is a chok; and that parah adumah is the chok of the chukkim, the decree that's key to the entire Tanakh.

The Ibn Ezra you quote is not properly presented. In 17:1, God gives a commandment to Abraham to circumcize and then (accordinf to the Ibn Ezra) tells HIM, specifically, not to ask why (the words mean "that he won't ask why circumcision"). This doesn't make the over arching commandment to all others (presented in Vayikra 12) as a chok.

So maybe a posuk would be helpful. Thanks.

The message you're responding to was something like a Judeo/Christian chok in that the final statement leaves the answer to the question unanswered. It implies, in a sense, that Jesus is the last parah adumah, the key to the entire Tanakh (John 5:39), and does so in a manner that redeems Israel completely for not taking part in the Jesus-epoch since they're being utterly true to the commandment not to ask what the Tanakh (as a chok) means.

It appears to be true that as laid out, if Jesus were the Messiah, it would be completely impossible for Israel to know that until after he died, since his death, if it's part of his entire epoch, would have to occur, as the crowning sign of a life that's being alleged to be the key to the Tanakh as a chok.

I can't get my head around the concept that the death of Messiah (as part and parcel of his ministry) would therefore have to occur before anyone, Jew or otherwise, could know for certian that he's Messiah (since giving the meaning of the chukkim would be one of the things he'd have to accomplish to prove conclusively he's Messiah), and that having completed his (first?) ministry (through his death) he can now open Jewish minds to the meaning of the Tanakh as a chok (Luke 24:32; 24:45; Acts 8:32; 8:35)?

Who, after his death, other than perhaps Saul of Tarsus, is, or could be expect to be listening to him (see link to Boyarin essay below)?

Fwiw, Daniel Boyarin has a truly excellent essay on the concept of Jesus' "opening the scriptures" (i.e., fulfilling the mandate to give the meaning to the chok of the Tanakh, or all the chukkim in the Tanakh). Boyarin, whose loyalties are to Judaism, concedes in the essay that it's very difficult to deny the power of Origin's explanation for how Jesus opens up the Tanakh to Jew, Gentile, and anyone who will listen. He juxtaposes Origin's interpretation of scripture with Jewish midrash. Furthermore, he makes the death of Jesus the grease that gets the gears on opening the Tanakh moving.

With that said, it just hit me, or I guess I should say that I just did get my head around the fact that the death of Messiah could be the crowning revelation of his life if that death is the ultimate chok throughout the Tanakh (no rhyme intended). How cool if the death of Messiah is the ultimate revelation hidden beneath all the other decrees חק and signs אתת throughout the Tanakh, and, or, on the macro level, the Tanakh as itself a chok. It's cool in the sense that no part of Jesus' life could be applied as the meaning of any chok in the Tanakh until the final, most important revelation, his death, is thought of as the meaning of a chok, therein opening the Jewish mind to search every other meaningful part of his life (miraculous birth, walking on water, making the blind see, feeding the poor, healing the lame like me), to see if they relate to any of the decrees in the Tanakh? In a sense, his death would be the retroactive act (the act retroactively applied ) in order to properly examine his life in the light of the Tanakh (or we might say to re-examine the Tanakh in the light of his life).

I was just glancing at a passage in the Tanakh, Jeremiah, that seems to imply something along those lines in the most midrashic manner imaginable.



John

 

[dybmh]

When you ask if the Almighty has ever given a law in the form of a question, we can say with some authority that he's given multiple commandments as a "decree" חק, and sometimes as as a "sign" אות, as well as numerous commandments that are both a decree and a sign (the commandment to circumcise being one of the commandments that's both a decree חק and a sign אות).

...

yes, absolutely! -----The Almighty has given Israel multiple commandments as decrees חקים and as signs אתת which any normal person would question.

This is irrelevant. Individuals questioning a law is completely different than giving a law in the form of a question:

​

If, therefore, an uncircumcised person keeps the righteous requirements of the Law, his uncircumcision will be counted as circumcision, will it not?​

​

That is an unanswered question. It is seeking a loophole in the law. "If you do this, then you don't need to be circumcised, it will be counted as if you did it." "It will be counted as if you did" is a loophole. An invalid loophole.

Now to the question of refuting your debasement of St. Paul where you claim he makes himself a god with no authority to do so.

I intentionally did not name the author who composed the words in Romans 2.

God is clear that there will come a time when a certain man, in the likeness of a second Moses, i.e., Messiah, will himself give the meaning of all the decrees given throughout the Tanakh:

Nah. That's wishful thinking. But, even if it is true... giving meaning is NOT finding loopholes.

"Search the Tanakh; for in it ye think ye have eternal life: and it is that which testify of me. And yet ye will not come to me that ye might have life" (John 5:39-40).

This verse does not support the assertion made prior to its citation.

The speaker is making a grandiose statement about themself. It is neither relevant nor credible if it is interpreted literally.

In spite of the lack of relevance, if the topic were about "a prophet like Moses" the verses supporting it are: Deuteronomy 18:18-19 and Deuteronomy 34:9. Where the "prophet like Moses" is literally identified as Joshua. Since there is an ongoing problem with understanding what 'literal' means, it's good to have this example.

These verses literally identify Joshua as the promised future "prophet like Moses".

I will raise them a Prophet from among their brothers, like you, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him.​

​

And it shall come to pass, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.​

​

And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the people of Israel listened to him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses.​

Again, introducing the promise of a prophet like Moses has no relevance to the seeking of a loophole. Nor does it have any bearing on seeing this attempt by the author of Romans to escape the law of God. But hopefully now you have a good example of what it means to claim something is "literally" in the text.

​

St. Paul knows that the Tanakh says Messiah will reveal the meaning

Revealing the "meaning" is not adding, removing, or changing the details, the conditions, which execute a commandment from God.

Circumcision of the flesh is a commandment. Circumcision of the heart is different. Circumcision of the lips is different. The later two do not abrogate the first.

St. Paul knows the great Mystery that the miraculous birth, life, teaching, and premature death, of Messiah, is the full meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת (John 5:39-40), but that that creates the conundrum that Jews, by blindly obeying the decrees חקים and signs אתת, as commanded by God (until Messiah reveals their meaning), have no way to know that the way they will know Messiah has arrived is only by knowing the meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת, which can't be known, until Messiah has already been miraculously conceived and born, lived, taught, and died prematurely. Israel can't know Messiah has arrived, and thus can't receive the meaning of the decrees חקים and signs אתת, until they know Messiah is dead (the sign אתת of his death being the key that opens up the decreed חק nature of his birth, life, and teaching). Israel can't know Messiah has arrived until they know he's died, and can't know he's died until they know he's Messiah?

None the less, the author of Romans, whom you refer to as Paul, is not bringing meaning. They are over-ruling written law in the form of a question. If the audience cannot answer the question then someone who already has an aversion to the law will likely accept this reasoning in spite of the inherent weakness.

If a person has an aversion to circumcision of the flesh, that is proof they do not have a circumcised heart. That means the target audience cannot qualify for the loophole even if it were valid. It's a huge loser of an argument. I'm not sure why anyone would consider these ideas about circumcision valuable other than as a negative role model.

 

[rosends]

Off the top of my head there's the fact that in Exodus 12, circumcision is part of the decree חק of Passover:

And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance חקת of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof but every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou has circumcised him, then he shall eat thereof.​

​

Exodus 12:33-34.​

Not only does the language seem to imply that circumcision is seminal to the Passover ordinance, but the Talmud, with other midrashim, implies circumcision blood is mingled with the blood of the lamb placed on the doorposts, thereby codifying circumcision as part and parcel of the decree (ordinance) of Passover.

But this is a matter of interpretation, connecting two things as a chok because one is listed as such and another commandment is in the same verse. That's what the medrash sort of does according to some readers. I'm looking for anything more concrete and not a function of your interpretation.

I would totally subscribe to the idea that the entire Torah/Tanakh is a chok; and that parah adumah is the chok of the chukkim, the decree that's key to the entire Tanakh.

The Beit HaLeivi's position cannot be taken at face value because some commandments are given with reasons. The standard rabbinic idea is that it is Milah which is the foundational key, and yet it isn't explicitly presented as a chok. The rest of your reply goes into your Christian tendencies and is uninteresting to me as it doesn't address what I asked.

 

[Ebionite]

Re: John 5:39-40

Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
John 5:39-40

This verse does not support the assertion made prior to its citation.

The speaker is making a grandiose statement about themself. It is neither relevant nor credible if it is interpreted literally.

There's additional information here...

But [this cometh to pass], that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, [even] the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
John 15:25-26

 

[dybmh]

Re: John 5:39-40

Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
John 5:39-40

It is a grandiose statement.

There's additional information here...

Off topic

But [this cometh to pass], that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

Off topic

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, [even] the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
John 15:25-26

2 Corinthians 11:14.

Did Satan lie in Matthew 4? Did the serpent lie in Genesis 3? Or was it twisting and tempting?

2 Timothy 3:16-17. The lessons have been given how to identify serpent speech. The test is not True or False. The test is, does it conform to the spirit of the law.

Romans 2 at the end subverts the spirit of the law. It's clear the author is conflicted. It is useful as a negative role model, for discerning serpent speech, the forked tongue, as it presents itself from a believer and a sinner.