In this episode of Hebrew Voices #227 - Sukkot: Tests of Faith, Nehemia hosts a special Sukkot webinar to unpack the question of what the Israelites dwelled in for 40 years, the historical context of the Rabbinic mandates for the holiday, and how Moses’ words in Deuteronomy are the key to understanding the spirit of the Feast.
I look forward to reading your comments!
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Hebrew Voices # 227 – Sukkot: Tests of Faith
You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.
Nehemia: But in verse 2, “To know that which is in your heart,” right? Well, what do you mean? I thought… well, how do you… And then he says, “Whether you will keep His commandments or not.” But doesn’t He just look in my heart and know everything, and I don’t have to do anything because He just knows my heart? But if your heart doesn’t translate into action, then it’s not really in your heart. That’s what he’s telling us. Or maybe, let’s put it this way: maybe it is in your heart, but it doesn’t mean anything. For God, your heart has to translate into action. That’s what He says, not me.
Nehemia: All right, guys, chag sameach, thank you for joining us. This again was kind of like just one of the morning Bible studies I did with Lynell. This was several morning Bible studies, actually. I’m going to try to condense them into one and see if I can do it in somewhere between 30 minutes and three… hours…
Lynell: [Laughter] You can do it up close.
Nehemia: Okay. “Houuuurs.” That’s actually an inside joke that Keith and I have. There was this gentleman who had, like, a theory he had come up with, and he asked if he could present it to me. And I said, “Well, how long would it take?” Right? “Do you want to tell me your five-minute theory? Okay.” He said, “Houuuurs.” And he said it like that.
Nehemia: I’m like… he really did. No, he literally did. I still remember it. Anyway. Alright, yalla. So, Sukkot. What’s Sukkot about? So, what I love about Sukkot is… well, I love a lot of things about Sukkot. It’s very experiential. So, when I was a kid, Sukkot was a really big deal for me because… So, the first place I grew up… we later moved to an apartment building. But we originally grew up… in my younger years I grew up in a condominium, a 17-story condominium. I guess it was actually 16, because there was no floor 13, but whatever. And it had, I don’t know, 500 apartments, or condos, or whatever. I don’t know the exact number. And most of the people there were Jewish, but they weren’t observant Jews. So, my father wanted to build a sukkah, and there was all this green grass. Giant… you couldn’t even call it a lawn, it was like, you know, it was huge. And they said, “No, you can’t build the sukkah there.” And so, he said, “Can I build it in my parking place? Because you’re saying those are public spaces. I own the parking place.” They said, “No, you can’t.”
So, he noticed people had boats, and they were parking their boats, you know, or the boat carrier, whatever you call that thing, they were parking that in their parking place. So, he said, “Can I put a U-Haul trailer in my parking spot?” And they said, “Yes.” Now, my father, of blessed memory, was a lawyer, so he said, “Can I have that in writing, please?” They gave it in writing. And then he pulled into his parking space with a sukkah built in the back of a U-Haul trailer. And this made national Jewish media in the US. It was in Jewish newspapers. And they were irate, the board of the condominium building. But, you know, he had gone through such an effort, so it was like a really big deal.
Later, we lived in an apartment building, and I used to sleep in the sukkah. And I remember waking up one day, covered in… I actually was using a tarp as a blanket, because it was so cold in Chicago. And I woke up and there was a layer of snow, like probably this thick, covering the tarp. It actually probably saved my life, because it was insulating. But those are my childhood memories.
Lynell: Your dad was really smart, Nehemia.
Lynell: That was brilliant.
Nehemia: He knew how to work the system. He was, you know, he was a Jewish lawyer, so. Alright. So, let’s look at what the Bible says. What I love is, it’s in the Torah. It tells you exactly what Sukkot’s about. So, I’m going to have Lynell read Leviticus 23, and what we want to get is to verse 40. But I don’t know that we’ll get to that today. We might just skim through it. So, start in 33, and you guys have the notes here. We’ll read 33 to 36, then 39 to 43, and I’ll pop in with my clever comments every once in a while.
Lynell: Your clever comments. That is so cute.
“Yehovah spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Say to the Israelite people, On the 15th day of the seventh month there shall be a feast of booths to Yehovah to last seven days. The first day shall be a sacred occasion. You shall not work at your occupations. Seven days, you shall bring offerings by fire to Yehovah, and on the eighth day you shall observe a sacred occasion and bring an offering by fire to Yehovah. It is a gathering. You shall not work at your occupations.’”
Nehemia: All right. So, that’s interesting. So, now, verse 37 through 38 then shifts to a summary of… it’s kind of like a parenthetic statement, which is a summary of the entire 36 verses that came before it. Right? Like, it almost ended, and then in 39… You remember that… there was a cop show, I forget what it was called, but the police detective would say, “Oh, and one more thing.” Right? Remember that? You know what I’m talking about?
Lynell: Oh yeah! That was, that was…
Nehemia: I want to say it’s Matlock…
Lynell: Columbo. It was Columbo.
Nehemia: Columbo! Okay. So, Columbo would say, “Oh, one more thing!”
Lynell: I loved that show!
Nehemia: I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it, but I’ve been told I’m like Columbo. So, the Torah is kind of like Colombo here, and it says, akh bechamisha-asar yom la’chodesh, “But on the 15th day of the month,” of the seventh month. Right? So, 39 is like, “Well, one more thing I want to tell you.” And this is the moneyball, as Keith would say. It’s the key thing. Right? So, let’s now read verse 39. So, he’s making a general statement. “All these are the appointed times with the sacrifices,” et cetera, “but on the 15th day of the of the seventh month…”
Lynell: “On the 15th day of the seventh month, when you’ve gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of Yehovah seven days, a complete rest on the first day.” Does it say that?
Nehemia: No, it says “a time of rest,” shabbaton. We’ll do a separate study on that someday.
Lynell: All right. “And a shabbaton on the eighth day. On the first day, you shall take the fruit of hadar trees,” which are olive trees.
Nehemia: Well, let’s not define it here.
Lynell: Oh, “Product of hadar trees…”
Nehemia: So, hadar actually means majestic. “The fruit of a majestic tree,” whatever that is.
Lynell: “…branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before Yehovah your God seven days. You shall observe it as a festival of Yehovah for seven days in the year. You shall observe it in the seventh month as a law for all time throughout the ages. You shall live in booths seven days. All citizens in Israel shall live in booths…” Does it say citizen?
Nehemia: Citizen there in Hebrew is ezrach, which means native-born. So, meaning, there’s two types of people in the congregation of Israel in the Torah. There’s the ezrach, the native-born, meaning someone who’s a physical descendant of Jacob. And then there is ger, or G-E-R in English, I suppose. Gimel-Reish. Ger is someone who is a sojourner. So, wait; this doesn’t apply to the sojourner? What’s that about? Well, let’s come back to that. Ask me that question later, once we understand what a sukkah is.
Lynell: What about those who have joined themselves to Yehovah?
Nehemia: That ger. That’s what that means. A sojourner is someone who has joined himself to Yehovah.
Lynell: All right. “Shall…”
Nehemia: Who isn’t a native born, like genetically, but who has joined himself. And then somebody says, “What about nekhar?” Nekhar is a foreigner, right? Someone who hasn’t joined himself to the God of Israel and the people of Israel. All right. So, um…
Lynell: “In order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I, Yehovah, am your God.”
Nehemia: All right. So, He tells you the purpose. The purpose of the festival of Sukkot is to remember that God caused us to dwell in booths when we left Egypt. Well, what’s the significance of that, right? And what I like to do is, you know, people come up with all kinds of theories. I want to be really careful not to say, “Well, you know, the numerical value of the word sukkah is such and such, and the numerical value of this other word has the same gematria,” the same numerical… “and therefore the purpose of Sukkot…” I mean that, okay, who knows? That’s very subjective, and anything’s possible.
So, what does God say about it? That’s what I always ask. So, let’s start with this question. So, there’s a mystery here in this verse, and the mystery is something that’s sort of so obvious you might not notice it. It’s kind of like in the Book of Esther; it never mentions the name of God or even the word Elohim. Even the word “God”. But people often don’t realize that until somebody points it out to them, right? Something so obvious staring you in the face that you don’t realize it until somebody points it out. They’re just staring you in the face.
Nehemia: What? Why are you laughing? This is very serious.
Nehemia: So… and what is this obvious point that you wouldn’t notice until somebody points it out? So, He says, “In order that the generations will know that I caused the children of Israel in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.” Where does it say that? So, nowhere in the Torah, other than this verse, does it say God caused Israel to dwell in sukkot using the word sukkot. So, that’s interesting. So, let’s keep that in the back of our mind when we ask the question, “What is a sukkah?” So, we have a reference to sukkot, not the feast, but the physical structure, which in English we call it “booths” or “tabernacles.” Interesting that we use the word tabernacles in English, right? Well, that’s kind of strange, right? What even is a tabernacle? Right? When I think of tabernacle, I think of the mishkan, which is the Tabernacle, right? And mishkan literally means “the dwelling place”. Right? That’s what… Right? It’s like the same word as shekhina glory. Right? Shkhina, Mishkan, the place of the dwelling of Yehovah’s name. Right? And he says, “And I dwelt in your midst,” that’s why it’s called mishkan.
So, let’s look at Genesis 33:17. Can you read us that first, my darling?
Lynell: “But Jacob journeyed on to Sukkot and built a house for himself and made stalls for his cattle. That is why the place was called Sukkot.”
Nehemia: So, it says in Hebrew, “And Ya’akov traveled to Sukkot, and he built for himself a bayit.” Bayit is house, “And for his flocks he made sukkot, therefore, the name of the place was called Sukkot.” Right? So, there’s a geographical location in Transjordan called Sukkot, and here we have to ask a question; was it really called Sukkot because Jacob built sukkot? Or maybe it originally had that name. This happens in the Tanakh, and then it was sort of reinvested with that name after Jacob built sukkot for his animals.
So, he has some kind of structure called the sukkah, which we translate in English as booths. Which is contrasted with a bayit, a house. And what we can already take away from this is, sukkah is some sort of a temporary structure, which is contrasted with a bayit, which is a permanent structure. And then when we think about the Temple, when David wants to build a temple to God… There is no word “temple” in Hebrew. I guess there is, mikdash, right? But the Temple isn’t normally called Mikdash. What it’s normally called in the Tanakh is Beit Yehovah, the House of Yehovah.
And God says to David, “When did I ever ask for you to build a house for Me? I’ve always been in a Mishkan.” And a Mishkan is just a dwelling place which is not a permanent structure; it’s actually a mobile structure. It’s really interesting; in modern terms we could call it a modular, mobile structure. Right? Meaning it’s modular in that you take it apart and then you put it back together, basically at a moment’s notice, and it moves from place to place.
And then we see in Exodus, He talks… we read this in the, I think in the last study, He talks about, “Every place I cause My name to be mentioned.” And throughout Deuteronomy, He talks about, “The place where I will cause My name to be mentioned,” and it uses there, in Hebrew, what’s called the imperfect, which is a continuous action. Right? So, in Deuteronomy it talks about the place Yehovah will cause His name to be mentioned, which we say is the Temple in Jerusalem. So, the more accurate answer is that, eventually, it became the Temple in Jerusalem. But originally it was wherever the Tabernacle was set up. Which was a temporary location which could be for a day, or it could be somewhere for hundreds of years. Right? Like in Shiloh.
So, the point here is that sukkah is a temporary structure, and it’s contrasted to bayit, house. Just like in the Temple, we have the Tabernacle, which is then contrasted to the house, the House of Yehovah. Right? So, there’s the contrast. And it’s interesting that in English we call a sukkah… we use the same word for both sukkah and mishkan, for both sukkah and tabernacle. Right? We call them both tabernacles when we say Feast of Tabernacles. So, that’s not accurate, but it’s actually not wrong in a way. Right? So, the Tabernacle is also called… we’ll get to that I’m jumping ahead.
Let’s look at Exodus 12:37. And the reason we’re looking at that… I’ll read that, is that it says, “And the children of Israel traveled from Ramses,” Ramses, the name of the city where they were slaves, “to Sukkot.” Sukkot here is the name of a place in Exodus 12:37, “about 600,000 men.” So, maybe that’s what it means in Leviticus 23:40. “I caused the children of Israel to dwell in Sukkot.” Maybe He doesn’t mean booths, maybe He means just that geographical location. Right? But they didn’t actually dwell there; they were there for a very short period of time as they were fleeing, and they’re actually still in Egypt. Right? So, in Leviticus 23 it says, “When I took you out of Egypt,” but in Exodus 12:37, they actually haven’t left Egypt yet. Right?
And how do I know that? Because it goes on and it mentions the city of Sukkot again. And I’m looking for that… and they haven’t left the border of Egypt when they’re in Sukkot. So, let’s look here. So, it’s Exodus 13:20, “And they traveled from Sukkot, and they camped in Etam at the edge of the desert.” So, they haven’t reached the wilderness yet. And by the way, when we say desert, it’s not really desert. Midbar is anywhere which isn’t inhabited. Right? So, I think the Australians would call that the outback, and… Right? So, it’s any area that’s… I mean, look, in modern terms… Well, no, “country” is an area where you have agriculture. Right? So, we’re talking about a place that’s beyond where you’re growing crops, and midbar literally means the place where you lead… that is, what we say, desert, is midbar, is the place where you lead animals to graze. Right? It’s not good for anything else except for grazing. Right? So, it’s like most of Texas.
Nehemia: No, really. So, I mean, Texas is a lot of open space where you’re not going to grow corn, because maybe there’s not enough water or something like that. So, they’re traveling from Sukkot to Etam, which is at the edge of the desert. So, Sukkot is in Egypt. Right? So, that’s not what it’s referring to in Leviticus; it happens to be that there’s a town called Sukkot. But think about that; the only place that mentions Sukkot outside of the Feast of Sukkot that He caused us to dwell in booths is someplace in Egypt, which is mentioned again in numbers 33. But it’s not what He’s talking about. He’s talking about something in the desert. So, this is a bit mysterious, right? And the Torah does this; it’ll be… you know, “Remember that I told you Gwennie penguin is the cutest penguin of all time.” And imagine if I never said that until now. No offense, Penny.
Nehemia: So, that’s how the Torah will often tell us something. You know, “Remember X,Y,Z, something I’ve never mentioned before.” But they knew it. How did they know it if He hadn’t mentioned it before? Because they were doing it, right? Meaning, they had been doing it for, you know, some number of years at the time Leviticus 23 was revealed. Actually, it might have been just for a year. I don’t know because the Torah is not in chronological order. So, we don’t know exactly when that took place, but it was sometime in the desert.
So, what did they dwell in for 40 years? That’s the question we have to ask, right? What were they dwelling in in the desert? And so, there we’re going to look at Exodus 33:8-10. And this is a famous passage that… it’s not the only passage, it’s just like a really good illustration of what they were dwelling in. If you can read it…
Lynell: Okay. And I’m going to put up our poll about… we have a quiz about that. Okay. So, a sukkah, Nehemia, what is a sukkah? Is it a tent?
Nehemia: You have to wait for the teaching.
Lynell: Oh, yes! Tent? Yes. Is it a house? I’m going to give them…
Nehemia: Well, no, that we already said, right? There’s the contrast… there’s what we call a semantic contrast linguistically in the verse in Genesis between bayit, house, and sukkot, booths. Right? Or whatever sukkot are, right?
Lynell: And it’s a booth covered in branches too, guys. It’s everything but a house that we have up there. So, it should say, “a booth covered in branches.” Where did that answer come from?
Nehemia: So, almost all the answers are correct.
Lynell: Yeah, except for a house.
Nehemia: All right, let’s look at our Bible verse.
Nehemia: Exodus 33:8-10. And look, so, let’s put the context back, because we just had the, you know, poll. So, the context here is that God said, “I caused you to dwell in booths when I took you out of Egypt, and that’s why you should build these booths, or whatever they are, sukkot, in the future.” What do they actually dwell in? Let’s read it.
Lynell: All right. “Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each at the entrance of his tent…”
Nehemia: Mmm… so they were dwelling in tents. So, this is interesting. Let’s finish reading those verses.
Lynell: “…and gaze after Moses until he had entered the tent. And when Moses…”
Nehemia: That’s the Tent of Meeting, which was the precursor of the Tabernacle. In other words, there was a tent Moses would pitch, and he would go inside, and he would talk to Yehovah face-to-face. And really, like, really cool thing is, it says Joshua never left the tent. Joshua was in there hearing, and it makes me think whenever it says, “And Yehovah spoke to Moses, saying,” that’s Joshua sitting there with his reed and a piece of leather and writing down what he heard.
Nehemia: Yeah. Alright, go on.
Lynell: Oh, wow. “And when Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent while he spoke with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud poised at the entrance of the tent. All the people would rise and bow low, each at the entrance of his tent. Yehovah would speak to Moses face-to-face as one man speaks to another, and then he would return to the camp. But his attendant, Joshua, son of Nun, a youth, would not stir out of the tent.”
Nehemia: Mmm. Wow! So, the Israelites dwelt in tents when they left Egypt for 40 years, and so, why is this important? So, Rabbinical Judaism has what I think I can call a legalistic definition of a sukkah, right? And it’s actually one of their key arguments, literally, in why do we need the Oral Law. Because the Oral Law gives us the specific specifications that are required for a sukkah to be valid. So, in other words, you can build a sukkah on the back of a U-Haul, you can build a sukkah on the back of a camel. But if you take a vine that’s growing out of the ground and it grows around, like, poles that you have set up, in a lattice, and it creates sort of a natural sukkah, that’s not valid. And how would you ever know that without the Oral Law? So therefore, you need the Oral Law, which is a bit interesting. We make up a bunch of rules, and say, “You need our rules, because otherwise you wouldn’t know our rules that we made up.”
Okay, so… And the image you would get from Rabbinical Judaism, and I’m not trying to be funny here, is that each Israelite had two structures. He had a tent made of some kind of cloth, or goatskin, or something like that. Right? Remember that… So, the Tabernacle is called the Tent of Meeting, and what’s the Tabernacle made of, the Mishkan? It’s made of these wooden slats that are covered in gold, and they interlock with little pieces, and then they’re covered in goat skin. Right? And that’s called the Tent of Meeting. So, a tent isn’t necessarily what we think of today. Right? A tent today has a very narrow definition as well, right? If I throw up, literally the Tabernacle, nobody in English would call that a tent. But in Hebrew, that’s called a tent, right? Meaning, tent has a broader meaning in ancient times than it did today… or in Hebrew at least. Let’s say in ancient Hebrew.
Lynell: So, Nehemia, Paul had the same question I did. So, Rabbinically speaking, when the gourd thing grew over Jonah, that wasn’t a sukkah. But was it a sukkah?
Nehemia: Well, let’s not get into the gourd. Let’s… I don’t know. That’s an interesting question. So, we’ll answer that by looking at what a sukkah is biblically, by the biblical definition. So, let’s go back. So, in the Rabbinical thinking, there must have been two structures for every Israelite in the desert. They had a tent, and then they had a sukkah next to the tent. So, like, maybe they slept in the tent, and during the day, when it was hot, they went out into the sukkah. Right? That seems to be the image that you would get from the Rabbinical definition.
But when you read in the Torah, there is nowhere in the Torah that it says they dwelt in sukkot. It always has them dwelling in tents. And my takeaway from that is that a tent is a type of sukkah. Like just linguistically. Unless Leviticus 23 is making it up and lying, which I don’t believe it is, then when it says, “I caused you to dwell in booths when you left the land of Egypt,” it meant the type of booth they were dwelling in, or sukkah they were dwelling in, was an ohel, a tent. Now, again, ohel in Hebrew, Alef-Hey-
Lamed, is a much broader definition than in modern English. Right? Because the Tent of Meeting, which is a modular structure covered in goat skin, and various, you know… according to one translation, it’s not goat, it’s
seal skin, which is obviously ridiculous.
So, the point is that sukkah includes tent. And so, what did he actually make for the animals? Probably some kind of, you know, pens, right? Maybe with coverings, and therefore it was called a sukkah. And we’ll see in a little bit what that has to do with it. Now, this is an important thing; tent can also be metaphorical in the Tanakh. So, for example, 1 Samuel 4:10 has an expression that appears numerous times, and it says, “Each man fled to his tent.” This is when they were defeated in war, and they flee to their tents. Sometimes they were victorious in war, and everybody returns to his tent. And there, it doesn’t literally mean tent, it means your house. Right? Like, kind of in English, we say “every man is the lord of his castle”, or the… what do they say? Some expression like that, right? Well, I don’t actually have a castle, I have… you know, in Jerusalem I had a tiny little apartment.
Nehemia: Okay. So, let’s look at 2 Samuel 7:6.
Lynell: “From the day that I brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, to this day, I have not dwelt in a house.” This is God speaking, right?
Lynell: “…but have moved about in tent and tabernacle. As I moved about…” Yeah.
Nehemia: So, yeah, so, God is walking about, traveling about, in tent and tabernacle, and we would say, “Oh, those are two different things.” But really, in Hebrew we have this structure that you have in a lot of languages where you say the same thing twice in different ways, and they are either two different things or, or two ways of saying the same thing, right? That’s called hendiadys. It’s this linguistic concept. So, tent and tabernacle here may be two different things, but they’re really the same thing. Right? And that makes sense, because the Tabernacle is called “the Tent of Meeting,” ohel mo’ed.
So, God is dwelling in a tent and tabernacle, right? And then in 2 Samuel 6:17, it talks about them bringing the Ark into Jerusalem and setting it up on what later would become… what we would call later the Temple Mount. Before the Temple was built, right? Remember, temple in Hebrew is House of Yehovah. And it says, “and they brought the Ark of Yehovah, and they placed it in its place in the midst of the tent which David had stretched out,” is what it says. So, this is a literal tent, with some kind of sheets or cloth, or probably animal skins that are covering it. That’s how they would make tents. Right? But he says, “he stretched it out”, so it’s a literal tent.
So, the Ark is in a tent before the Temple was built on the Temple Mount. And why is that important? Well, so Amos 9:11 is a really interesting verse. Let’s read Amos 9:11. And Amos, you’ll remember, is one of the 12 Minor Prophets. It is, in the Hebrew Bible, between Ezekiel and Psalms. You have the 12 minor prophets which began Hosea, Joel, Amos. And, you know, Amos made really good cookies.
Lynell: You are so funny.
Lynell: You’re hilarious. Okay, so we’re in Amos 9:11.
Lynell: “In that day, I will set up again the fallen booth of David.”
Nehemia: And the Hebrew says, “the sukkah”.
Lynell: “I will mend its breaches and set up its ruins anew. I will build it firm, as in the days of old.” So, He called it a sukkah here.
Nehemia: Right. And it’s interesting; the King James has, “I’ll raise up the Tabernacle of David.” Now, what is that? Is that the house of David, metaphorically? It might be, right? Or maybe it’s referring to the Temple, which, before it was a permanent structure built by Solomon, it was a tent which had the Tent of Meeting, right? And so, maybe that’s why it’s called “the Sukkah of David” and not “the Temple of Solomon.” Right. That precursor of the Temple. But God is dwelling in a sukkah, which is called a tent, which is called a tabernacle. Wow!
Okay, so you’ve got a bunch of connections there. Let’s look at Numbers 9:15-23. And here it’s talking about God establishing the Tabernacle, or they dedicated the Tabernacle, rather.
Lynell: “On the day that the Tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the Tabernacle, the Tent of the Testimony, and in the evening, it rested over the Tabernacle in the likeness of fire until morning. It was always so. The cloud covered it, appearing as fire by night. And whenever the cloud lifted from the tent, the Israelites would set out accordingly, and at the spot where the cloud settled, the Israelites would make camp. At a command of Yehovah, the Israelites broke camp, and at a command of Yehovah, they made camp. They encamped as long as the cloud stayed over the Tabernacle. When the cloud lingered over the Tabernacle many days, the Israelites observed the Lord’s mandate and did not journey on. At such times as the cloud rested over the Tabernacle but for a few days, they remained encamped at the command of Yehovah, and broke camp at a command of Yehovah.”
Nehemia: It’s interesting whenever they’re translating “broke camp” there in the JPS, it’s yisa’u, they traveled, right? If you remember from your ulpan; nosea, nosa’at, nos’im, nos’ot.
Nehemia: Right? So, you’re trav… So, it doesn’t say “broke camp.” They would travel, right? Which involves first breaking the camp, packing it up on the back of the mules, or whatever… donkeys, and then traveling. Right? So, you have two things: camping and traveling. And whenever you see the cloud rise up, then you travel. First you have to break camp. And then whenever you see it stop, then you set up camp; you encamp. Right? So, let’s read verse 21… And why is this important? Because He said, “Remember that I caused you to dwell in the booth, in the sukkot, for 40 years,” which evidently referred to their tents. What’s the significance of that? Okay, we dwelt in booths. Okay. We have better housing now. Or maybe some of us have worse housing, I don’t know. So, no, there’s a significance to that, right? Which was obvious to them because they had done it for 40 years. So, what does the Torah say about it? Right? We could speculate, but what does the Torah say about it? It says it right here. Go on.
Lynell: “And at such times as the cloud stayed from evening until morning, they broke camp as soon as the cloud lifted in the morning, day, or night. Whenever the cloud lifted, they would break camp. Whenever it was two days or a month or a year, however long the cloud lingered over the Tabernacle, the Israelites remained in camp and did not set out. Only when it lifted did they travel. On a sign from Yehovah, they made a camp.”
Nehemia: Ooh, wow! The Hebrew says, al pi Yehovah yachanu. “Based on the mouth of Yehovah, they camped,” ve’al pi Yehovah yisa’u, “And upon the mouth of Yehovah,” meaning, the word that came out of the mouth of Yehovah, “they traveled.” Et mishmeret Yehovah shamaru, “They kept the charge of Yehovah,” meaning, literally they guarded the thing of Yehovah that required being guarded. And it says, al pi Yehovah, be’yad moshe, “By the mouth of Yehovah through the hand of Moses.” Right?
In other words, the 40 years of dwelling in these tents and traveling from place to place, and you don’t know if you’re there a day, or several days, or just a single night, or for years, that is them walking in faith and obedience to Yehovah. Right? That’s not my theory; it says it right there. “By the mouth of Yehovah they traveled, by the mouth of Yehovah they camped.” Right? They’re guarding the charge of Yehovah, meaning, that which they need to guard. And that word for charge, mishmeret, that refers to commandments as well, right? The commandments in general are referred to… He says, “Guard My charge,” which is “My set of commandments,” right?
So, this is an expression of walking in faith and obedience to Yehovah. You don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know when you’re going there, and you’re just following. You don’t know when you’re stopping, right? You’re literally “literally”, right? Not like the young people say; they say literally but mean metaphorically. You’re literally walking in obedience to Yehovah, following wherever He takes you, and stopping wherever He tells you to stop. Going wherever He tells you to go, and you have no idea where you’re going, when you’re going to get there, how long it’s going to take, how long you’re going to stay.
So, when He tells us to remember walking, when He tells us to remember dwelling in booths for 40 years, this is the significance of that. It’s walking in faith by the Word of Yehovah, by the mouth of Yehovah, whatever comes out of His mouth, expressed through the hand of Moses, expressed through the cloud. But it’s the Word of Yehovah expressed in those different ways. That’s the significance of Sukkot, according to the Torah, of dwelling in booths, in tents for 40 years.
Lynell: So, I have a quiz here. Now you can see, when you get to this quiz, that I didn’t write all the questions. Nehemia really helped me with this quiz.
Nehemia: No, it was actually Sedgewick. He did some of them.
Lynell: It was Sedgewick that did this. And we just spoke about this. So, it says, “Why not build houses? Why didn’t they build houses out in the desert?” And, you know, I think this is a huge significance of Sukkot, and what we’re supposed to remember here. The property taxes were too high, just like they are in Texas. They couldn’t get a mortgage. I’m sorry, I just…
Nehemia: That one was Gwenny Penguin.
Lynell: I think he is the funniest person on this planet, because that’s just how he thinks. So, I’m going to give you just a moment here to finish. Why not build? Why didn’t they build houses when they left Egypt? And this is such a significant part of the teaching that Nehemia is doing, and it’s because the cloud could move. They were literally living by the Word of Yehovah, and we’re doing the same thing today, guys. That’s why we remember it; because He wants us to remember, that’s how He leads us. That just blew my mind. I don’t know about anybody else, but I gotta tell you. There’s a verse we’re going to next in Deuteronomy, right Nehemia?
Nehemia: Right. And everybody has the sheet, so they can see what our next verses are. It’s a surprise, what comes next?
Nehemia: Deuteronomy 8:2-6. And it looks like we’re probably not going to get through everything, so you guys can look this up and do your own studies afterwards.
Lynell: This is where I got, where… this Scripture just blew my mind. This is where I said something, and Nehemia said to me… what did you say, baby? You said…
Nehemia: I think that was obvious.
Lynell: “I thought that was obvious.” Not to me it wasn’t!
Nehemia: When He says, “I caused you to dwell in booths,” what’s the significance of a booth? Well, I mean, to me, that part was obvious. You know, it’s interesting; when something’s obvious, that’s when you should question it. That’s what I’ve learned as a scholar. When something’s obvious, that’s where you need to question and say, “Well, you think it’s obvious, which means maybe you’re accepting without evidence.” And so, that’s why this is important. I’m not just going to tell you. You know, Lynell always says, you know, “What’s the answer?” And I say, “Let’s see what the Tanakh says.”
Lynell: I never ask that anymore. I don’t.
Nehemia: I’ve trained her.
Lynell: So, verse 2 says, “Remember the long way that Yehovah your God made you travel in the wilderness these past 40 years, that He might test you…”
Nehemia: “…test you by hardships, to learn what was in your hearts, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had ever known, in order to teach you that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives on the word that Yehovah decrees.”
Nehemia: We’ve got to dwell on that for a second. So, of course, here, Deuteronomy is quoting the New Testament.
Lynell: No, it’s not. No, because the New Testament wasn’t written…
Nehemia: Yeshua quoting Deuteronomy. And he says, “As it is written…”
Nehemia: Or something like that.
Nehemia: Right. And what does it say here? “In order to inform you,” or “to make you make it known to you, that not upon bread alone will a man live, but upon everything that comes out of the mouth of Yehovah shall a man live.” So, what came out of the mouth of Yehovah? Boy, I don’t think we’ll have time to get to that. But guys, go read Exodus 16. The manna from the very beginning was intended as a test.
It’s a really complicated situation, right? So, you have this substance that, if you collect too much or too little, you’re still satisfied. If you leave it over to a morning, six days of the week, it rots. But if you leave it over on Friday till Saturday morning, it doesn’t rot. And if you look for it on Saturday morning, it’s not there. Right? So, it’s a substance that has a lot of rules, and I think we have to look at it as a supernatural substance. Meaning, like, there’s no natural substance that behaves according to those rules, right? There aren’t atoms in the universe that know when it… maybe there are, but not that I’m aware of, that know when it’s Saturday versus Friday, right? But the man, or manna, in English, did. And by the way, man means “what” in ancient Hebrew. So, manna is something like “whatchamacallit”, because they didn’t know what it was. That’s what it says in Exodus 16. So, it has these rules, and it says from the very beginning that the purpose of the man was to test Israel to see if they’d be obedient concerning the Shabbat.
So, this is really interesting. So, God sets up a system for 40 years to test Israel, every week, every day, and… Right? So, you’re supposed to take a double portion on Friday, only take a single portion on the first day through the fifth day, which, you know, today we call Sunday through Thursday, and then don’t take any on Saturday; there won’t be any there. Don’t even look for it on Saturday, right? So, God’s testing them with time and food. That’s incredible! Time and food. Now, the first test for humankind was food, right? Because I have people say, “God doesn’t care what you eat, He just cares about your heart.” Well, I don’t want to speculate about what God cares about. I know what He said, what God said… I can’t read God’s mind. He can read mine, but I can’t read His. What He does tell us is that food and time are important, and food and time are expressions of showing your obedience. And what does showing your obedience demonstrate? This is so beautiful. Right? And here it’s about food and time. The man is about food and time. Deuteronomy 8:2… you just read it.
Nehemia: Right. But in verse 2, “To know that which is in your heart.” Right? Well, what do you mean? I thought… well, how do you… And then He says, “Whether you will keep His commandments or not.” But doesn’t He just look in my heart and know everything, and I don’t have to do anything because He just knows my heart? But if your heart doesn’t translate into action, then it’s not really in your heart; that’s what He’s telling us. Or maybe, let’s put it this way… Maybe it is in your heart, but it doesn’t mean anything. For God, your heart has to translate into action. That’s what He says, not me. Right? That’s what His test is, right? And you might think, “What a silly thing. Why can’t we eat pig?” Well, because God said so. Well, what’s the significance of that? He’s testing us. He tells you that! Food and time are a test! Right? So, it seems arbitrary, maybe it is arbitrary, in a sense. Right? He’s testing you. All right, where were we?
Lynell: “The clothes upon you did not wear out, nor did your feet swell those 40 years.” How awesome would that be? Does that say that in Hebrew? “They didn’t swell”? What does it say in Hebrew?
Nehemia: It said they didn’t… lo batzeka, which literally means… they didn’t turn into dough. Meaning you didn’t get athlete’s foot, that’s really what it means, right? Batzek is dough, which ferments and has a certain smell because it has fungus. Right? Because… what do you call that? Yeast is a fungus. So, your feet didn’t stink like dough.
Nehemia: Like, you didn’t get athlete’s foot. Right? They didn’t rot, and you didn’t get foot rot; that’s what it means.
Lynell: “Bear in mind that Yehovah your God disciplines you, just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore, keep the commandments of Yehovah your God, walk in His ways and fear Him.”
Nehemia: That’s what it says.
Lynell: Is that what it says? Okay.
Nehemia: That’s exactly what it says.
Nehemia: All right. So, we’ve got another one here. Deuteronomy 29:4-5. It says a very similar thing.
Lynell: It says, “I led you through the wilderness 40 years. The clothes on your back did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You had no bread to eat and no wine.” Does it say, “you had no wine”?
Nehemia: “No wine or strong drink,” and strong drink in the in the Tanakh means beer. Right?
Nehemia: Wine in the Tanakh is anything that’s sweet that’s fermented; it doesn’t have to be from grapes. It could be from pomegranate, it could be from dates. There’s date wine in ancient world. And then shekhar, which literally is “intoxicant”, is basically anything that’s not sweet, that may be a sour even. Now, what about whiskey? They didn’t have distilled spirits until the Middle Ages, right? The technology didn’t exist, as far as I know. So, shekhar is probably something like beer or…
Lynell: So, they didn’t have bread, like they had in Egypt.
Nehemia: Right, they had man. They had the man.
Lynell: They had man. And they didn’t have wine…
Nehemia: …which they sick and tired of because it tasted delicious, but over time, if you eat the same delicious thing repeatedly, you get sick of it. And so, you didn’t have bread, you had to rely on the manna. You didn’t have wine. Why didn’t they have wine? Because they were traveling in tents, and you have to grow grapes in order to produce wine, right? They couldn’t go to the wine store; it didn’t exist. Right? So, where would you get wine from if you can’t grow it? That’s the blessing of the Land of Israel, is, every man under his fig and under his vine. Right? So, you can make your own wine, because you have vines, or you buy it from your neighbors, right? But if you have 600,000 people and they don’t have any vines, then there’s no wine, right? It’d be a pretty rare thing.
“In order that you would know that I am Yehovah your God.” So, how does that tell you that He is our God? Because despite that we don’t have vines, we weren’t dying of thirst. Despite that we couldn’t grow grain, we weren’t dying of hunger. Despite that we’re walking around for 40 years, our shoes aren’t decaying. And despite that, you know, I don’t have the ability to grow flax and make linen, my clothes are still intact. So, this was a walk of faith for 40 years, and God was showing His providence, His protection. And why was he doing this? So that you would know that He is Yehovah. And why is this significant? Because He said in Leviticus, “The purpose of Sukkot is so you’ll know that I caused you to dwell in sukkot,” which includes tents, we saw. Well, what’s the significance of that? The significance of that is that for those 40 years we were in this temporary structure, and we were subject to the elements. And at any moment we would have to break camp and move to somewhere else or stay there for years, all based on al pi yehovah, on the mouth of Yehovah.
And so, that’s what the message of Sukkot is; to remember that in Egypt, or in the desert, when we came out of Egypt, we dwelt in booths for 40 years. And at any moment we could be told, “You have to leave. You have to move.” We were walking in faith, literally, trusting in Yehovah to provide for us, trusting in Yehovah to protect us. And even our clothes and our shoes He was protecting. And that’s what the message of Sukkot is.
Why do we have to remember that? Because life today is walking in faith in a temporary structure, right? This world we’re living in is temporary. My sister in Israel, Ariella, who’s a scientist, she sent me this really funny little cartoon. And it says, “100% of the people who confuse causation and correlation eventually die.” Right? So, if you confuse causation and correlation, you might think, “Oh, if I confuse those, and everybody who confuses them dies, it’s my confusing them that causes me to die.” Right? But no; everybody dies. Right? This world, we’re in a sukkah. Right? Now, metaphorically, we’re in a sukkah. We’re in a temporary structure. That’s what a sukkah is, it’s a temporary structure. Versus a bayit, a house, which is permanent, right? That’s a structure that might be broken apart and travel at any moment. You might have to pull up stakes, as we say in English, and move it any moment based on the cloud. And this life we’re in is temporary. Any one of us could die in the next second, and we don’t know. Right? Or you could live for years. Right?
So, it’s walking in faith. It’s a demonstration of your faith in Yehovah. And it’s a reminder that we’re walking in a temporary situation here in the world, just like our ancestors did in the desert when they left Egypt. You’re walking in faith in Yehovah, whether you acknowledge it or not. Right? This is temporary. A hundred percent of people are going to die. Right? Might take longer, hopefully, it might take shorter, but everybody eventually. Right? That’s the other thing medical scientists say, that if, based on a certain timeframe, 100% of the people in a study will die. Right? A hundred years later, everyone will probably be dead.
So, that’s what Sukkot is about. We are in a temporary situation. We’re in a temporary dwelling. This body is a temporary dwelling, right? And at any moment, it might be over. And that’s what Sukkot is to remind you of; that while you’re in this temporary sukkah, this temporary dwelling, you are to walk in faith with Yehovah and realize He’s the one that provides. He’s the one that gives you the instruction. He’s the one that leads and guides you in your walk of faith and your walk of life.
Nehemia: That’s what Sukkot is about.
Lynell: Amen. That is beautiful.
Nehemia: Yeah, there’s a bunch more notes. Guys, go do your own study.
Lynell: Let’s do some Q&A. So, I want to show you guys something. I showed you guys at the very beginning, but this is really important. When you have questions… I’m going to share my screen, because I want you to see where you can go to do some searching on nehemiaswall.com. Let me show you real quick. And then we’re going to talk with each other. Give me just a minute. I think this is important.
Dev said, “I’ve tried to tell people for years how to do this.” Right here, on the right-hand side, underneath nehemiaswall, right here, you can look up anything you want to know. So, we do have a Scholar Club that is going to be starting, I think, next month. And if I can spell it properly… If you’re interested, it’s not published yet, so only you guys here know. This is on the back end. We’re still working on the page; we’re working on a video. Andrew, thank you so much, who’s working on it. It brings up articles for whatever you search on. You can click on it, and it will bring things up. Like if I wanted to know more about Sukkot, eventually this will be up on the website, and I don’t know where exactly it will be, but if I want to know more about Sukkot, I can just click here and I can see Sukkot. If I want to know something about covering… it doesn’t matter what you put here, guys, it’s a really good search. Discovering common ground. There’s a bunch of things here, but you can search there.
Nehemia: And can I point out… One of the reasons you can search so thoroughly is that we have spent huge sums of time, money and resources on transcribing the podcasts. And we actually did something really interesting… So, I mean, because you could do it automatically… like, I watch videos all the time where there’s like these subtitles popping up, and it’s not what the guy says. And so… we make mistakes, but we spent a lot of resources on getting people who are native Hebrew speakers to transcribe what I say at a mile a minute so that it’s as accurate as possible. So, you can search it, and, you know, is it 100%? No. There’s definitely… I’ve even found some mistakes, but I don’t have time to go over everything. But the main reason for the transcription has been to make it searchable, so we could find stuff ourselves. Right? It’ll be like, “I think I said something some years ago.” Okay, well, now we can actually look for it and find it… usually. So, it’s a very powerful search tool.
Lynell: All right. So, we’re going to do some questions, some Q&A. Real quick. Nehemia, what happens if a holiday falls on Shabbat? Are the commanded observances combined, or are there distinct requirements?
Nehemia: So, this is kind of a broader question of, what are the requirements of Shabbat? And I’ll be honest; this is something that… my view has changed over the years. But let’s save this for a separate study on what are the requirements of Shabbat. I would just point people to Exodus… let’s see… chapter 12. And I think the big…
So, here… let’s back up. So, in Rabbinical Judaism, you are not allowed to cook on Shabbat, but you’re allowed to cook on what he calls the “the high feasts.” Right? Meaning the moadim, or the mikra kodesh, the appointed times. The holy proclamations. Right? In other words, if the first day of Sukkot is on a Tuesday, in Rabbinical Judaism you can cook food, whereas if it’s on a Saturday, you can’t. It’s a really interesting thing in Rabbinical Judaism. So, you’re allowed to cook on the holiday, but only for that day. So, if I’m making bread for the week in Rabbinical Judaism, I’m not allowed to do it on the first day of Sukkot, even if it’s on a Tuesday. I can only make it for that day. So, what do you do in Rabbinical Judaism if the first day of Sukkot falls on a Friday? And what’s the problem? So, I can cook for Friday, no problem, but how do I cook for Shabbat? So, they have this thing called an eruv tavshilin, which is… remember the eruv, which is the string around the neighborhood? Remember that, babe?
Nehemia: Right. So, this is an eruv for food. And what it does is, it’s basically a giant loophole you can jump through that allows you to cook food on Friday for Saturday.
Lynell: Now, Nehemia, do you follow that?
Lynell: Okay, just letting you know. He is explaining it…
Nehemia: I’m explaining that… but the question was based on this idea, “how do we implement these rabbinical rules?” I mean, even if they don’t know that that’s what they’re asking, that’s really what they’re asking, right?
Lynell: Yeah. We’re not following Rabbinical rules. Just so you know. I just want that really clear.
Nehemia: So, Exodus 12:16 is talking about Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Chag HaMatzot, it says, “In the first day is a mikra Kodesh,” a holy proclamation, “and the seventh day is a mikra kodesh it shall be for you. You shall do no manner of work, except,” say, “Except.”
Nehemia: Quack. “Except…” I don’t actually know what noises hedgehogs make. Somebody can tell me in the comments, perhaps. And, “Except that which every soul alone will eat, it shall be made for you.” Right? So, you’re allowed to cook on the feasts, on the mikra kodesh, certainly on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, right? But the word there is mikra kodesh, which is exactly what we have in Leviticus 23. So, cooking is the exception. It is work, but it’s the exception of the type of work that you’re allowed to do on the feast. What about Shabbat? Let’s leave that for a Shabbat discussion.
Lynell: Okay, here’s another Shabbat question. I’m just going to say something. The Torah says not to start a fire on Shabbat. What about those who live in very cold, freezing areas? Snow, freezing temperatures? I… we don’t follow the um…
Nehemia: So, again, that…
Lynell: We don’t follow the Rabbinical…
Nehemia: Well, that’s not just Rabbinical, right? It’s much more complicated than that, right? Because I used to teach that you’re not allowed to have a fire on Shabbat under any circumstances, based on Exodus 35: Lo tiv’ar esh bekhol moshvoteikhem beyom haShabbat. “Do not kindle a fire in all your habitation on the Sabbath day.” I’ve changed my view on that over time. But we should do a separate teaching on that. But…
Nehemia: But the real answer here is, you should work it out for yourself in fear and trembling with prayer and study before the Creator of the universe. You certainly shouldn’t put yourself in a situation where you’re going to die, right? The Torah says that these commandments are so that you should live by them. And so, if this is literally a matter of life and death, which it can be, in like, Alaska, or places like that, then you should not die.
Lynell: Okay. Lighting candles on Shabbat; is it a commandment or is it tradition?
Nehemia: Obviously not commanded. I almost feel like that’s a facetious question, but I’m suspecting it’s not.
Nehemia: No, there’s no commandment anywhere in the Torah to light candles. In fact, what’s really interesting about lighting candles is that it’s not commanded in the Talmud either, right? So, whenever it came into Judaism, it’s post-Talmudic. Now, that’s a really interesting piece of information historically, because the Talmud was completed around the year 500. Some people will say even as late as 550. Traditionally it was closed around the year 500. So, let’s say lighting candles as a commandment wasn’t even part of Rabbinical Judaism until after the year 500. Well, that’s pretty late in Judaism.
Lynell: You have a bunch of questions to get to, and I’m going to… and Nehemia knows a lot about a lot of everything, so I’m just going to stop him and say: We’ll do a study on Shabbat at some point. I’m just going to walk through these questions; you can answer the ones you want today…
Nehemia: Oh, somebody asked about the ger. That’s an important question.
Nehemia: The sojourner. Okay. So, why does it say that only the native-born has to build a sukkah? So, now we know the answer. Or… let me back up. In ancient Israel, all land was inherited. You could purchase land, but it was only for up to 49 years, so you were leasing it. You could lease land for 49 years; there really wasn’t purchasing land. And all houses were built on land. So, sojourners anyway lived in tents, right? A sojourner is, by definition, living in a temporary structure because they don’t own land and have nowhere to build a house. So, they don’t need to build a sukkah, because they live in a sukkah 353 days out of the year, right? The Hebrew year is 354 days. The rest of the year, they’re living in a tent anyway. That’s why it says the native-born. Now, if you’re a sojourner who happens to live in a house, then yes, you should be building a sukkah.
Lynell: Okay. Did the average Israelite have a family tent before they left Egypt? If not, where did they get the material to build them?
Nehemia: They had lots of goats, and there are… So, we didn’t get to this part of the study. So, a sukkah could be made out of branches and reeds and various pieces of vegetation. Now, you need some kind of a framework, which will probably, in ancient times, be branches as well. So, there are branches even in the Sinai. So, the Sinai desert, even if it’s in Saudi Arabia, wherever it actually was, those areas are semi-arid. They’re not like the… Actually, the Sahara isn’t even like the Sahara, right? When we think of desert, we think of just like, you know, miles and miles of sand dunes. Most deserts are not like that. Yeah.
Lynell: At what point do you think the pilgrimage will resume for keeping Sukkot?
Nehemia: So, the pilgrimage has never ended. If you’re able to go to Jerusalem for Sukkot, I think that’s a wonderful, beautiful thing. We definitely want the Temple to be rebuilt. So… Because ultimately, it says, “Don’t appear before Yehovah empty handed.” That means going to the Temple with the sacrifice, right?
Nehemia: I can’t do that literally today. Maybe I can do it metaphorically.
Lynell: Is a teepee a sukkah?
Nehemia: It’s a type of sukkah, for sure, absolutely.
Lynell: Do we read Deuteronomy during Sukkot, or all Five Books of Moshe?
Nehemia: So, that’s talking about the gathering, the Hak’hel, which is done once every seven years, in the sabbatical year, and that’s the full Torah. There’s actually an interesting passage in Nehemiah 8 which we didn’t get to, but it talks about… they celebrated Sukkot, and they spent, I think it says, a quarter of the day, every day for 7 or 8 days, reading from the Torah. Which we are about to do now, so we will be spending the next four hours reading the Torah. No, you can do that yourself, though.
Lynell: In Deuteronomy 8:3…
Nehemia: What does it say?
Lynell: “Test you by hardship to learn what was in your hearts.” What? What does the Hebrew say in Deuteronomy 8:3? JPS says in order to teach you… Oh, “He subjected you… in order to teach that man does not live…”
Nehemia: So, here’s what it says.
Nehemia: “And He afflicted you and starved you and fed you the man which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, in order to make it known to you that not upon bread alone will a man live, but upon everything that comes out of the mouth of Yehovah shall a man live.” That’s exactly what it says.
Lynell: Is the Talmud the only place to find the dimensions for a sukkah? Well, you read…
Nehemia: So, the Talmud doesn’t exactly have dimensions. It has minimum dimensions and minimum specifications. Right? And maximum specifications and maximum dimensions…
Lynell: Did this come from the Bible?
Lynell: That’s the answer, in my opinion.
Nehemia: So, in other words, you have made-up rules, and you need the made-up rules to know the made-up rules. And therefore, the made-up rules must be true, otherwise you wouldn’t know the made-up rules.
Lynell: Okay. We were asked, “Will this be available later?” Yes, if it records properly, then yes, we’ll have it available. There’s… let’s see. I’m looking for ones that are pertaining to Sukkot. Just saying… Remember that the children of Israel lived in booths, they didn’t believe Yehovah, but rather the bad… Okay, that’s not a question, that’s a statement. All right. Please comment on the eighth day, Shemini Atzeret, they’re asking about… comment on it.
Nehemia: So, Sukkot’s a really interesting holiday. It’s only seven days, but there’s an eighth day, which is a day of rest. And it’s interesting, because it’s specifically said to be an atzeret, and atzeret in Hebrew means “a gathering”. So, this is a question I mentioned in a previous session about the phrase mikra kodesh, which is translated in the King James as holy convocation, meaning holy gathering. But then there are two days that are specifically gatherings, the seventh day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the eighth day of Sukkot, even though it’s not part of Sukkot. Right? So, those are actual gatherings, right? The word there is atzeret, which apparently means something like gathering.
Lynell: Timothy had a question, but I think Timothy, you’ll find the answer in the notes. If you email Dev, or myself, at nehemiaswall.com. He said to sum it up, in Exodus 33:22, and it’s in Hebrew, do you see it?
Nehemia: No, I don’t, I have no idea what you’re reading.
Nehemia: What are you reading?
Lynell: I’m reading the question. Let me put it in general chat. It’s in the Q&A towards the bottom. It’s like four up.
Nehemia: Oh, Exodus 33, ve’sakoti khapi aleikha. Right, that’s actually not in the notes. We didn’t cover that, but we covered related things.
Lynell: Yeah, it seems to be significant to think of his palm over the sukkah. He does talk in these notes about God shielding us.
Nehemia: Right, so, the meaning of sukkah is from the word sokhekh, which means to cover over and to shield over by covering something. So, it’s a shelter, right? So, in that sense, it’s protecting you. And it’s used metaphorically of God protecting, and it talks of Him putting His wing over you to protect you, like a bird covers her young, right, with a wing. And, so, yeah. So, the sukkah is God protecting us. Yes.
Lynell: So, Elizabeth asked about the lulav and etrog. We didn’t read about that this morning, because it’s not… is that in the Bible?
Nehemia: Well, yes, but it’s not… It’s a very important part that we didn’t get to because we didn’t have time, but it’s in the notes. So, here’s the “standing on one leg answer”. So, Leviticus 23:40 describes different vegetation that you should take and celebrate Sukkot. And then, when they read this in the book of Nehemiah chapter 8, they understood it, that Leviticus 23:40, and specifically it’s in the notes here, Nehemiah 8:15. And I have a study on my website about it as well, on Sukkot. So, they read it, and they understood that as instructions for how to build the sukkah, for the materials that you use to make a booth.
And so, it’s really interesting. It’d be like if I said to you, “Take a bunch of two-by-fours and nails and celebrate the Feast of Picture Frames.” And so, you could do two things with those nails, the two-by-fours and the nails. You can make picture frames, or you could take them and shake them around and say, “God didn’t say what to do with them, but the Oral Law tells me to shake around the two-by-fours and the nails.” So, at least in the time of Nehemiah, they understood this as the materials from which to build the sukkah.
Now, where did the rabbis get the idea of taking this cluster of vegetation and shaking it around? So, there’s a hint in 2 Maccabees 10:5-8, which talks about when they liberated the Temple. And guys, this is the very brief version; go read it yourself. Talks about where they liberated the Temple and they celebrated Sukkot, which they had missed. So yes, Hanukkah, the celebration of Hanukkah, was originally the Sukkot which had been missed while the Jews were being hunted down by the Greeks. Right? They were in the wilderness, and they couldn’t build booths because they were living in caves and holes in the ground, and so, they celebrated Sukkot in Jerusalem on Hanukkah, and they took these celebratory bundles, and it uses the Greek word there. So, this is something that comes from the Greek culture in the rituals of Dionysus, that you take this bundle of vegetation and you carry it around in a celebration. So, there seems to be a connection there. Like, in other words, this is Greek influence, in my opinion. But maybe it’s not; maybe it’s something that goes back to the Canaanite religion or the high places. I can tell you it’s not from the Torah, or it’s a misinterpretation of what it says in the Torah.
So, someone asks the question here: were etrogs, that’s a citron that looks like a lemon, were they around in the time of the Maccabees? So, yes. They come from the Persian… so, this is really interesting. So, I did an interview… guys, go… Nelson, can you post the link? I think it’s in the notes as well. I did an interview with Dr. David Moster, who wrote a book about the etrog. And the etrog actually comes originally from either India or China, and it wasn’t around in Israel in the time of the Torah, in the time of Moses. But in the Persian period, it was cultivated, this citron, this lemon-looking thing, it was cultivated in imperial groves by the Persian emperor, or the house of the Persian emperor, and so it was considered a royal fruit.
So, that’s interesting, because the Torah says pri etz hadar, and hadar is a term that means something like majestic, meaning royal. So, what happened is somebody in the Persian period read, in the Torah, “Oh, a majestic fruit, fruit of majestic tree. Well, we know what that is, we know it from the Persians, right?” Like, imagine if you read today, you never heard anything, and there was a thing in the Torah that says, “Set up a holiday tree in your living room.” And I didn’t know what that meant. Imagine. It’s not in the Torah, but imagine it said, “Set up a holiday tree in your living room,” and I said, “Oh, okay, I know what holiday trees are. Those are the Christmas trees, right?” Because I see that in the culture around me. So, that’s what happened with the etrog. They saw in the culture around them that there was this royal fruit called a citron today, or an etrog, and it was royal because it was considered royal by the Persian emperor.
Lynell: So, I will tell you guys what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be doing a Scholar Club. I’ll tell you just a little bit about that. That club is going to be a much smaller group. It’s going to be… hopefully we’ll be able to do meetings, and not webinars, so that we can all see each other. With this type of venue, there are like, you know, 500 people. It’s really hard for everybody to be able to see somebody else. In order for that to happen, we… it just doesn’t work for that, especially for a teaching.
And so, this group, you can look it up, we’re going to be sending some information out. I know that a lot of you have expressed that you’d like to have events that are like… more Karaite events so that, you know, people of like faith can get together. I hope that this is some of that. In the chat, you guys can chat with each other too, as to where you’re going and, you know, talking to each other. I love when you tell where you’re from and other people can see that, because they’re like, “Oh, I’m there too,” you know? And it gives them access to you this way.
Do you want to say anything about that, Nehemia? These are a group of people that will support what Nehemia is doing in his research and actually be able to help spread the Word of God to the whole world in that way.
Nehemia: So, I will say this, off the record, just between you and me.
Lynell: Just between you and 300 people.
Nehemia: Right. Well… how do I put this? So, there’s a lot of ministries out there, and they’re really effective at communicating. And you know… and some of them I think are wonderful; some of them maybe aren’t, right? You know. But what we’re doing is a little bit different in the sense that we want to communicate the Word of God, but also there are things where we have to do original research. You know, there’s this idea in Wikipedia; people will come and write something, and it’ll be rejected because they’ll say, “That’s original research.” You know, you might be stating some things that are facts, but that hasn’t been published anywhere, right? And they want to just rehash what’s considered maybe like common wisdom.
And common wisdom is great, but there are things in common wisdom that are wrong. And so, it’s important, from my perspective… like, what my calling really is, I feel, is to uncover the truth. Right? We’ve got this onion. And at the core of the onion is the truth, and we’ve got to peel away the layers. And there’s people out there who will say, “What a beautiful onion with 14 layers. Look how layer five has this, you know, deep spiritual meaning.” Yeah, but there’s something under that. What’s the truth behind that? That’s what I’m trying to get to, right? And that requires a lot of time and effort and resources, and you know… It’s funny, people think, “Oh Nehemia, you’re on vacation with Lynell.” No, we were waiting for our flight somewhere for 14 hours and couldn’t afford a hotel.
Nehemia: And we went to that place because we were researching manuscripts that nobody’s looked at, nobody even knows about, except for, like, you know, two or three people. And we were asked to come and look at them, or in some cases, we asked to come and look at them. And we’re uncovering things that, things that I didn’t know, right? Things that I thought… I thought the answer was something else. And I found and looked in the original sources, and I’m like, “Oh, okay, well, learned something new. It’s wonderful.”
One of the most beautiful things for me is to find out when I’m wrong, because then I have the truth. And that’s what you can be a part of in the Scholar Club, is to, number one, like I’ve always said for years, empower people with information. But we’ve got to find out what the information is, in some cases. We don’t even always know… I don’t always know! I don’t have all the answers, but I know how to find the answers… sometimes they can’t be found, by the way. There are things that I’ve tried, you know? I’ve uncovered every rock, and dug, and I can’t get the answer, right? But I know at least how to approach it and how to try and answer that. That’s where God has blessed me.
And so, you can be part of that, right? Not everybody can be a scholar. We have this metaphor, traditionally, in Judaism with the two brothers, Issachar and Zebulun. And it says one of them was a merchant, and the other sat in tents. And here it’s interesting; in the Jewish mind, sitting in tents means he sits in these studies. And so, the one who was the merchant, he supported the one who sat in the tents and studied. Because the one who was the merchant, he didn’t have the time. Maybe he didn’t have the aptitude for it. Maybe he wished he could do it, but, you know, he had other things that God had called him to do. But he could be part of studying the Word of God and investigating the Word of God by supporting the one who sat in the tent. So, I’m a sitter of tents. That is what I do. You know, Lynell has said to me, “You’re good at everything, except for fixing stuff.”
Nehemia: Yeah. That’s not me. Right?
Nehemia: So, you’re right. I’m a dweller of tents. If you need to know about an ancient Hebrew manuscript, I’m kind of good at that. If you need to, you know, fix the water heater, I don’t know how to use a wrench.
Lynell: He knows how to use a telephone.
Lynell: That counts. Can I just say, that counts?
Nehemia: And a credit card.
Lynell: Nehemia is like a hound dog. It is true, he is, no question. The scholar club…
Nehemia: I’m like a hedgehog. I’m going to dig through that hole and find those little grubs.
Lynell: It’s true. I mean, when he answers a question… Israel asks something off topic; do you have any comments on the name of Yehovah forming on the Western Wall of the Temple Mount? I haven’t seen that. Have you seen that?
Lynell: Have you seen the name of Yehovah being formed on the Temple wall?
Nehemia: A few years ago, it was something like vegetation, and then there’s the name of Yehovah in the mountains, and around Shiloh.
Lynell: I didn’t remember that when we were there. You’ll have to show me.
Nehemia: Yeah, you have to use your imagination when you look at the satellite photo.
Lynell: In the command for the nations to attend the feast of Sukkot in the future, in order for the world to get to the same lesson as Israelites in the desert, is the command for nations…
Nehemia: I didn’t follow. Say it again.
Lynell: Is the command for the nations to attend the feast of Sukkot in the future?
Nehemia: Yes! Zachariah, chapter 8. We didn’t get to that. Guys, go read it. It’s beautiful.
Nehemia: And who said anything about the future? Why isn’t the future now? It says in the future they’ll be punished if they don’t do it. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing it now.
Lynell: Am I in sin if I don’t set up a sukkah?
Nehemia: I wouldn’t say you’re in sin; I would say that today we are in exile, and you should do the best you can with the resources that you have. You know, when I was 20 years old, the first time I had my own sukkah… I didn’t have any sukkah at all. And I lived in the hood in Chicago. And I realized, “If I build a sukkah outside, I’m going to be murdered in my sleep.” And so, I’m like, “Okay, I’m supposed to live by the commandments.” Right? When I was a teenager, we lived in, you know, a nice middle-class neighborhood. It was probably a little bit dangerous sleeping outside in the sukkah in the backyard, but not quite as living in the hood, where… well, I won’t say certain things. Anyway.
Lynell: Is the eighth day a great feast with food selection and puddings?
Nehemia: I don’t know about pudding, but yes.
Lynell: I think we’re talking about Shemini Atzeret, yeah.
Nehemia: Right, right, right. And I don’t know what you mean by puddings. Like, that might be something in a different dialect.
Lynell: Maybe desserts. Sweet things.
Nehemia: Oh, yeah. Well, in Nehemiah 8 is where we go back to… we’re first talking about Yom Teruah, where he tells you one of the characteristics of a holy day is, “don’t be sad, be happy”. Even though they were legitimately sad. Do everything you can to… you can delay your morning until the next day, which they did. They eventually fasted after the whole feast season was over on the 24th day of the month, meaning the two days after Shemini Atzeret, in Nehemiah 8. But they say there, “Don’t be sad. It’s a holy day to Yehovah. Eat…” it says, “sweet…” What does it say there? Let’s bring it up. Nehemiah 8. Yeah, we had a whole thing on Nehemiah 8 which we didn’t get to, but…
Lynell: Is the eighth day a high Sabbath? While we’re on this subject.
Nehemia: Yes. That’s not a biblical term, not a Tanakh term…
Nehemia: …but yes, it is a mikra Kodesh, which is a day on which work is forbidden. So, they say here in Nehemiah 8… So, they read the Torah and they were upset. He says in verse 10, “Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks,” and sweet drinks probably meant something like wine. And how do I know it’s wine? Because anything sweet is naturally going to ferment after three days. They didn’t have refrigeration. So, “Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks, and send portions to those who don’t have anything prepared, for today is holy to our Lord. Do not be sad, for the joy of Yehovah is your strength, is your stronghold.” Wow! Intense.
Lynell: Peter asks, “Can one fast during Sukkot?”
Nehemia: I mean, you just read what we read.
Nehemia: Right? So, work it out for yourself from fear and trembling and prayer and study before the Creator of the universe. Sounds like “no”.
Lynell: How do you two observe your time in the sukkah? We pray, we eat, we put a big air mattress out there.
Nehemia: Well, we tried sleeping there, which I have done many years in the past, but in Texas, you have a problem with mosquitoes and bugs.
Lynell: No mosquitoes this year…
Nehemia: So, we set up a bug zapper, and it was like every 30 seconds while we were trying to sleep; Zzzz. Zzzz. Zzzz. Zzzz. And I’m like, “Okay, the Torah was given for Jerusalem, Land of Israel. It might not be practical in Texas, where there’s West Nile virus.”
Lynell: Yeah, yeah. No kidding.
Nehemia: I want to look at Amos 5:26.
Lynell: Okay. We’re going to we’re going to Amos 5:26. I’m there. Okay. Let’s go. Amos 5:26.
Nehemia: Hold on, let me look… So, do you want to read that, please?
Lynell: I’m going to look for it. I never… almost there. Yes. Amos 5:26 says… “And…” am I right? 5:26?
Nehemia: Yeah. You’ll think, what does that have to do with it, Nehemia?
Lynell: “And you shall carry off your king, Sikkut, and Kiyun, the images you’ve made for yourself of your astral deity.”
Nehemia: All right, so, these are some kind of gods, deities, something like that. So, he’s talking about how they’re going to go out into exile. They’re going to be exiled. And you’re going to carry with you into exile, right? You loved your gods so much, you’re going to take them with you in exile.
Nehemia: You’re going to carry Sikkut, your king, literally, and Kiyun, your image, kokhav eloheikhem, “the star of your god, which you made for yourself”. Now, what are the gods Sikkut and Kiyun? We don’t really know. But what makes this a little bit complicated is that this is then quoted… Well, actually first let’s see what’s in the Greek. So, the King James has, “But you have born the tabernacle of your Moloch.” Moloch? Did you have that in the JPS? Moloch?
Nehemia: Okay. And Moloch, of course, is the Ammonite god that they would sacrifice children to.
Lynell: That’s horrible, yeah.
Nehemia: Yeah. It was in the valley of Hinnom, which is Gehinnom, which is where we get Gehenna. Right? Because they would hear the screaming of children in Gehinnom, in the Valley of Hinnom, and that became a symbol for hell, for suffering. “You have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch, and Kiyun, your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.” That’s the King James. So, where did the King James get Moloch? Well, they read malkechem, “your king”, which is melech, as molech, which could be right.
In other words, it could be that “your king” is a euphemism; you have euphemisms in the Tanakh. The euphemism is where I say something in a nice way, or there are certain words I don’t want to say. That’s a sort of euphemism, at least in the biblical sense. So, instead of Baal, sometimes it says boshet, which means shame, right? So, melech could be a euphemism for molech. Meaning Kiyun your Moloch, right? Kiyun might have been a specific manifestation or specific type of statue of the deity Moloch, who they burned children to, right?
So, where does the King James get… maybe this should be a whole separate teaching. Long story short, guys, I won’t get into it. But look at Acts 7:43 and the Greek, of, I mean, the Septuagint, which is the ancient Greek translation of Amos 5:26, which has Moloch. That’s where the King James got it from. In other words, the translators of the Septuagint said, “Oh, malkekhem, your king, is a euphemism for Molech. Let’s just write Molech, because in Greek they won’t understand it otherwise.” Right? In Hebrew it’s obvious, or it can be obvious, if you see it. “Oh, okay. That’s the same letters.”
Anyway, so it’s interesting. So, some people say that’s the Star of David, which is utter nonsense. The Star of David had nothing to do with the star of your god, of Kiyun or Sikkut. The Star of David actually comes from Prague, where… I think we saw it when we were there, if I remember correctly, or at least we were there; I don’t know if we saw it. We have a photo. I have to check the photos. So, we were…
So, what happened is, in Europe, if you were important enough, you would have what’s called a shield of arms, or a coat of arms, rather, that you would put on your shield or in front of your house. A coat of arms, and the Jews of Prague in the 13th century or thereabouts, were given permission by the Holy Roman Emperor to have a coat of arms. And eventually, the whole Jewish world said, “Oh, we have a coat of arms, even though I’m not from Prague,” and that coat of arms has a Star of David on it. Which, by the way, the center of the Star of David is a Jew hat, which is a hat Jews were forced to wear to humiliate them. Probably the precursor of the kippah. Or certainly the precursor of the shtreimel, if you know what that is, that Hasidic Jews wear.
So, this coat of arms… it’s kind of like I’m Gordon from Lithuania, and I go online. I say, “Oh, the coat of arms of Gordon.” I find something from like, you know, Scotland, which has nothing to do with me, right, and I say, “I have a coat of arms.” Right? So, Jews around the world eventually adopted the Star of David from Prague as their symbol, because they’re like, “Okay, there is a coat of arms for Jews, it’s the Star of David.”
Now, what did it mean to the Jews of Prague? That’s the question. And it had nothing to do with the god Remphan, right? For the Jews of Prague, it was a symbol of… probably a kabbalistic symbol of protection, although it could also represent the name of Yehovah. But that’s a whole separate study. Let’s leave that alone for now.
Lynell: Can you build a sukkah on Shabbat? Bless you. You’re muted now.
Nehemia: And that wasn’t me, it was the penguin.
Nehemia: Achoo! Choo! Choo!
So, can you build a sukkah on Shabbat? That’s an interesting question. The short answer is no, the long answer is yes. So, it actually says in Leviticus 23:40 that you should do it on the first day of the feast even though it’s a rest day. It’s telling you to build the sukkah on the first day or take the materials on the first day. Probably “on” means “by”, right? Because we do have this thing in Biblical Hebrew that “on a certain day” can mean “by a first day”. So, the long answer would be, “No, you can’t, if you understand linguistically that ‘on’ there means by the first day.”
Nehemia: Oh, Nelson posted here that there’s a place I talk about tithing, in Torah Pearls. And he probably found that because there’s a transcript. See how important it was that we had a transcript?
Lynell: The transcripts, that’s really important, guys. They send those…
Nehemia: Originally, we were asked by a deaf person to make transcripts. And I’m like, “Okay, but that will cost tens of thousands of dollars. You don’t realize how complicated that will be, because I talk really fast and I use a very specific set of terminology.” Right? In other words, I’m using Hebrew words, but I’m not a Rabbinical Jew. So, the natural person to transcribe this for us would be someone who was raised in Rabbinical Judaism and is fluent in English. We try to hire those people. They’re like, “Wait, no way, you’re a Karaite and you’re talking about Christianity and Jesus. We want nothing to do with it.” So, it’s very complicated to get this transcribed. We had to find just the perfect people to do it.
Lynell: Do you think the Sukkot Genesis 33:17 is the same geographical location as the Sukkot of Exodus 12:37?
Nehemia: No, obviously it’s not. Meaning, one of them is in Transjordan, and it’s believed today to be the site of Deir Alla, which is interesting, because it… but anyway, that’s a separate thing in Transjordan. And then the other one is within the borders of Egypt, so they are hundreds of miles apart. And probably Sukkot was any… In other words, you have a bunch of places in the Tanakh that are called Gat, which means a press, like an olive press. Right? So, why do you have so many places called Gat? Because there were a lot of olive presses. You probably have a bunch of places called Sukkot, because there were a lot of places where they built sukkot for their animals, I would guess.
Lynell: You said the step-by-step ritualistic waving of the lulav and the etrog in the hand is not in the Torah, correct? Correct.
Nehemia: Definitely it’s not in the Torah.
Nehemia: What’s beautiful about it is that Rabbinical Jews don’t claim that’s in the Torah. They say it’s in the Oral Torah, and there’s no way you could ever know to do that if you didn’t have the Oral Torah. And therefore, you need the Oral Torah. Right? You could never understand the Torah by itself, the written Torah, without the Oral Torah, because you wouldn’t know to wave the lulav and the etrog. I agree.
Lynell: Could the cloud fire be the chuppah, and the chuppah is the sukkah the Israelites dwelt under?
Lynell: I don’t know what the… Chuppah? Oh chuppah, oh sorry.
Nehemia: So, they’re talking about, like, in other words, the sukkah is something to do with the metaphor of God being married to Israel. That’s a wonderful idea; it’s not what it says in Leviticus. Leviticus tells you it’s about that He caused us to dwell in booths. So, it was a 40-year marriage, is what you’re trying to say.
Nehemia: Meaning, the marriage ceremony lasted 40 years. When I thought, you know, some weddings I’ve been to were long. I don’t know.
Lynell: Psalm 7:9 in the ESV says, “You who test the minds and hearts.” The footnote says: “In Hebrew, hearts and kidneys.” Why does it say “kidneys”? What does Psalm 7:9 say in Hebrew?
Nehemia: There are… I’m looking at the… yeah, it is kidneys in Hebrew. So, in English, we’ll say, or in modern times, let’s say, you know, “I had this idea in my head.” So, that assumes a certain understanding of human physiology, which is, you know, a very modern understanding. In the ancient world, the heart and the kidneys and the liver, those three specifically, were thought of as the place where thoughts take place.
Now, does the thought really take place in your head? That’s an interesting question, right? Or maybe it takes place in your soul, which isn’t a physical place, right? So, yeah. But in the ancient world, they thought of it as your heart and your kidneys and your liver. So, that’s the answer to that. So, kidneys is not what you think of… meaning, it’s the physical part, the kidneys, but it’s where thoughts took place in the… Right? So, some translations will say, “Okay, well what is that equivalent to today?” And they’ll translate kidneys as mind, which isn’t wrong either, right? The mind isn’t a physical thing. There’s no physical part of your body that you can ask a doctor and say, “Can you cut out my mind?” That’s not a thing.
Lynell: Is it okay to wear a pendant with a Shield of David? I think you’re saying the Star of David…
Nehemia: Yeah. Shield of David / Star of David. In Hebrew, it’s called Magen David, “the Shield of David”. So, my answer would be yes. Other people would say no. I say work it out for yourself in fear and trembling appearing before the Creator of the universe. There is a theory and scholarship which has never been proved, that the origin of the Shield of David is that there was a messianic claimant, meaning someone who said he was the Messiah and actually led an armed insurrection against Muslim oppressors, whose name was David Alroy. And so, the claim was that the Shield of David was his emblem. I’ve never seen any evidence of that whatsoever. So… yeah. I have an explanation of the Shield of David, which admittedly, you know, is… look, these are symbolisms and they’re medieval symbolisms, right, and it maybe meant different things to different people. But I have one medieval explanation in my book Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence.
Lynell: Many camp out in tents for Sukkot. Does a tent work instead of something built with branches? Remember the quiz we did? What’s a sukkah? Yes.
Nehemia: Yeah, no, no, no. I’m trying to be cute here, but… No, yeah. So literally, the sukkah that they dwelt in for 40 years was a tent.
Lynell: Nehemia, the Tabernacle and the Tent of Meeting; are they the same physical structure?
Nehemia: Yeah. Well, that’s complicated. Because there were two different things known as the Tent of Meeting. There was the Tent of Meeting, which was a tent, we actually read that verse. And then later, that was replaced by the Tabernacle, which was then called the Tent of Meeting. Once the Ark was built, and in the Ark there was the Ark of the Covenant, the Aron Ha’Brit, which on top of it had the kruvim, the cherubs, and that was the Place of Meeting. Right? But before the Ark was built, and the Tabernacle was dedicated for the Ark, there was an actual tent.
Lynell: Elizabeth asked, “Did I understand correctly that I don’t have to feel guilty if I’m not sleeping currently in my sukkah?”
Nehemia: Well, I can’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t feel guilty about, but I don’t feel guilty for not sleeping in my sukkah.
Lynell: I don’t feel guilty about it either. Yeah, so, that’s a question. Is there going to be a Third Temple, Nehemia?
Nehemia: Yes. According to the Book of Ezekiel, and other verses as well.
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Donate Now ~ Bring His Word to Light
VERSES MENTIONED
Leviticus 23:33-36, 39-43
Genesis 33:17
Exodus 12:37
Exodus 13:20
Exodus 33:8-11
1 Samuel 4:10
2 Samuel 7:6
2 Samuel 6:17
Amos 9:11
Numbers 9:15-23
Deuteronomy 8:2–6
Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4
Exodus 16
Deuteronomy 29:4–5
Exodus 12:16
Exodus 35:3
Leviticus 18:5
Nehemiah 8
Exodus 33:22
2 Maccabees 10:5-8
Zechariah 8
Amos 5:26
Acts 7:43
Psalm 7:9
BOOKS MENTIONED
Etrog: How A Chinese Fruit Became a Jewish Symbol by David Moster
Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence by Nehemia Gordon
RELATED EPISODES
Hebrew Voices Episodes
The Sukkot Collection
Hebrew Voices #78 – Chinese Origin of the Sukkot Etrog
Regarding Tithing:
Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17
Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
The post Hebrew Voices # 227 – Sukkot: Tests of Faith appeared first on Nehemia's Wall.
