Here is a hand out which is a loose exegesis on the Bread Of Life that I had prepared a few years ago for a Sunday School class I was involved in: EXEGESIS: BREAD לחם (Lehem or Lechem) OF LIFE IN JEWISH THOUGHT---lamed (30, 12, 3), het (8, 8, 8), mem (40, 13, 4) Hebrew Gematria---Numerical Value of Lehem
Absolute Value: 78
Ordinal Value: 33 Total Value: 126
Reduced Value: 15
--- Gematria is mainly part of the Kabbalah, the Jewish Mystical Tradition. Hebrew and Greek are the only languages, (that are used in a Biblical mystical system) that assign their letters a numerical value. (As well as Latin, Aramaic and Arabic, but Hebrew and Greek are the predominant languages of the Bible). Being that the majority of the accepted texts for: The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. These numerical values are where the 666 passage of Revelation came from. In Hebrew, 666 could also be written as the letters vav-vav-vav, since vav has a value of 6, in all it’s values. In Greek, the letters are different and they would be chi-xi-psi or psi-psi-psi. 666 is believed to be Judeo-Christian code-speak for the Emperor Nero, during the times of the persecutions of the early Christians by the Romans.
----Links:
http://www.jhom.com/topics/bread/index.html---Spiritual significance of bread and wine
http://www.tedmontgomery.com/bblovrvw/C_4b.html
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rsposse/resurrection.htm
http://www.inner.org/gematria/gemchart.htm
http://www.horusset.com/greek/
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/LAO-GA.gif
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/LAO.html
http://www.biblestudytools.net/Lexicons/
http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/judaism_guide/jewish_glossary/
http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic21/less3/14_2001.html
---In the course of the Sabbath meal, the Hasidic master Rabbi Moshe of Kobryn [*] once took a piece of bread in his hand and said to his hasidim (followers): "It is written: 'Man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord does man live' (Deut. 8:3). The life of man is not sustained by the stuff of bread but by the sparks of divine life that are within it. He is here. All exists because of his life-giving life, and when He withdraws from anything, it crumbles away to nothing."--- The season of Shavuot is the time of the wheat harvest, in which the bread of display (lehem ha-panim) takes the place of ancient Israelite sacrificial offerings, since the temple was destroyed and sacrifices could no longer take place.---Pentecost is the Christian Shavuot.
--- Mirrors Manna
--- Martin Buber brings us several Hasidic tales whose message is transmitted through the symbol of bread. An Afghanistani Jewish folktale, "The King's Loaves," teaches a lesson about sharing and appreciation. We discover spiritual implications in a most mundane situation, a man ordering bread in a restaurant, in Nobel Laureate S.Y. Agnon's short story, "A Whole Loaf."
---Bread has always been important to life
---Bread has medicinal values
---Bethlehem or Beth Lachem is Hebrew for “House of Bread”
----Link Between Hebrew word for bread and war
--- Midrash Exodus 16:4-31 and Num. 11:7-9 Miracle of Manna from Exodus Rabba 25:3:
Young men tasted in it the taste of bread, old people the taste of honey, and infants the taste of oil [since bread was difficult for old people and infants to chew][1]
--- According to the Talmudic Passage Baba Mezia 107b--Thirteen things are said concerning bread eaten in the morning.[1] Bread will:
protect you from the heat; protect you from the cold; protect you from injurious spirits; protect you from demons; make you wise if you are simple, and help you win a lawsuit; help you learn and teach Torah; cause your utterances to be listened to; cause your learning to remain with you; ensure that you breath does not exhale a bad odor; ensure that you are attached to your wife and do not lust after other women; destroy all tapeworms in your system; drive forth envy; and cause love to enter.--- From Buber’s Collection of Hasidic Folktales: The taste of bread (Simha Bunam of Pzhysha)---Rabbi Bunam once said at the third Sabbath meal:
"It is written: 'Taste and see that the Lord is good.' What you taste in bread is not its true taste. Only the zaddikim [righteous] who have purified all their limbs taste the true taste of the bread, as God created it. They taste and see that the Lord is good."---Passover (Pesach) Meal: Seder Blessing: “Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheinu Malech Ha O Lam Ha Motsi Lechem Min Ha Aretz
Blessed are you O Lord God, King of the Universe Who has brought forth bread from the earth “ || Last Supper---bread=flesh, flesh=dust
---Bitter herbs=slavery of Jews by Egypt | Unleavened Bread=quick flight out of Egypt led by Moses. Moses || Jesus
---Hag haMatzah=Feast of Unleavened Bread- part of Passover
---Mystical significance of Seven
---Passover is a Shabboton=High Sabbath
---Sacrificial Lamb=Jesus
--- the afikomen
---Jesus/Passover Parallels:
A ceremony, dating back to the days of Jesus, is rehearsed during the Passover Seder. It is called the afikomen (sometimes spelled afikoman or afikomin), a Hebrew word meaning “festival procession.” (This should bring to mind the coming forth of the Passover lamb—and Jesus, the absolute Passover Lamb—into Jerusalem on Aviv 10—see “parallels between Jesus and the Passover lamb”: P-I).
Near the beginning of the Passover Seder, after the first of four cups of wine has been drunk, the father of the household takes three pieces of unleavened bread, each called matza (or matzah), and places them in a white linen envelope (the “unity bag”) with three adjacent compartments. A matza (which contains no leaven) resembles a large flat soda cracker with consecutive, indented “stripes” (from being grilled), and it is “pierced” throughout with many holes.
Shortly thereafter, the middle matza, now itself referred to as the “afikomen,” is used in a short ceremony called the yachatz (meaning “to break”). The afikomen is removed from its individual middle compartment in the envelope and broken in two. One part is put back into the envelope, while the other part is wrapped in another piece of white linen and hidden or “buried” (often behind a cushion, in a drawer, or under the table). The children will search for this piece of the afikomen until one of them finds it.
Later, the child who has retrieved the broken afikomen holds it for “ransom,” and the father must “redeem” it, traditionally with silver. Once this has been done, the father blesses the bread and the third cup of wine of the meal, the “Cup of Redemption.” A piece of this bread (referred to as the “bread of life”) is eaten by everyone with the third cup of wine. After the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., the afikomen became the substitute for the Pesach or Passover lamb. As the lamb had been the last thing eaten in the meal, so the afikomen became the last thing to be eaten, as though this bread finally would satisfy everyone’s hunger and provide permanent sustenance.
Jesus, the Passover Afikomen
The three pieces of unleavened bread in the linen envelope or “unity bag” may be thought of as symbolizing the three unified aspects of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (see C-6). The middle matza, the afikomen, thus may be considered to be representative of the second Person of the Godhead—the Son or Jesus. A matza is baked without leaven, the latter which represents “sin.” Likewise, Jesus never committed a sin (1 Pet. 2:22).
Recall that the matza has numerous rows of indentations, resembling stripes, as well as holes piercing it throughout. Before Jesus was crucified, his back was flogged (Isa. 50:6a; Matt. 27:26b) with a whip (with pieces of jagged glass and metal at the ends of the leather strands) which ripped away strips (stripes) of skin and muscle from His back, down to the bone.
Furthermore, Jesus’ head was pierced by a crown of thorns (Matt. 27:29a), His wrists and feet were pierced through by nails on the cross (Psalm 22:16c; Mark 15:25), and His side was pierced by a soldier’s spear after He died (John 19:34). Isaiah, writing of the future Messiah, said, “But he was pierced for our transgressions,...and by his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5ad). (In most Bible versions, “wounds” is translated “stripes.”) Zechariah, referring to the time of Jesus’ second (physical) coming, when the inhabitants of Jerusalem will realize that He is their Messiah, said, “They will look upon me, the one they have pierced” (Zech. 12:10b).
The afikomen is removed from its original location in the white linen envelope with the other two matzo (plural of matza). (Jesus left the presence of the Father and the Holy Spirit in heaven to come to this world.) Then it is broken into two parts. (One aspect of Jesus is God; the other is man. Also, Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would be “crushed” or “broken” for our iniquities—Isa. 53:5b. And, at the Last Supper, Jesus broke bread; as He offered it to His disciples, He said, “Take and eat; this is my [broken] body”—Matt. 26:26.) One part of the broken matza is put back into the linen envelope, while the other part is wrapped in a separate piece of white linen and hidden or buried. (The last thing Jesus said before He died was, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”—Luke 23:46—meaning that He voluntarily was giving back His Spirit to the Father to do with it whatever He had in Mind to do. Jesus’ body was wrapped in a clean linen cloth and placed into a tomb—Matt. 27:59,60).
Traditionally, silver is the reward paid for finding the afikomen. (Judas Iscariot was awarded thirty pieces of silver for arranging to find and betray Jesus so that He could be killed—Matt. 26:15.) The afikomen is held for ransom. (Jesus “...gave himself as a ransom for all men...”—1 Tim. 2:6). The afikomen also is called the “bread of life.” It is the last thing eaten, symbolically depicting that it will be sufficient to sustain everyone from that point forward. (Jesus repeatedly told a crowd of Jews that He was the “bread of life” and that whoever came to Him would “never go hungry”—John 6:35ab,51,53.)
(Continued in my next post).
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