EXEGESIS: BREAD לחם (Lehem or Lechem) OF LIFE IN JEWISH THOUGHT *(Continued)

Continuing from where I left off on my previous post: TheoPoetic Musings: EXEGESIS: BREAD לחם (Lehem or Lechem) OF LIFE IN JEWISH THOUGHT:

---While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body” (Matt. 26:26).--Jesus’ body is the Bread.

---”I Am The Bread Of Life”--- ‘I Am’ Statement, Jesus speaks with Absolute divine authority. I Am echoes God’s True name. The Tetragrammaton-YHVH or YHWH, also referred to as the Ineffable Name. Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey:, which is usually pronounced as Yahweh or Jehovah though the exact pronunciation has been lost. See http://www.eliyah.com/tetragrm.html and http://pages.cthome.net/hirsch/tetra.htm for more info. The Jews never pronounced the Tetragrammaton but substituted the word Adonai instead (usually rendered in the Bible as 'Lord'), because of fear of desecration of the name. Ha-Shem, which means the Name or Elohim, which means a god or many gods are also substituted for it. This is the special memorial-name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush. "And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM; and He said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you... this is My eternal name, and this is how I am to be recalled for all generations" (Exodus 3:14-15). Actually, the phrase in Hebrew is "eh-yeh asher eh-yeh." The word "eh-yeh" being the first person future form of "hovah" (to be). A better English translation would really be, "I will be who (or what or that) I will be." Even though the name YHVH appears earlier in Genesis 2, God didn't reveal Himself as YHVH until Exodus 3 in conjunction with the creation of Israel.

---Baal Shem Tov= Master of the Sacred Name

---Shema--- “Hear, O, Israel, the Lord, your God, is One (echad) Lord.” (One Unity) This is the fundamental belief in Judaism and the opening statement of many Jewish rituals. The Hebrew word echad for one is also used in the Genesis passage about Adam and Eve becoming one flesh, which is an act of union.

--- Jesus would have said in a form of: “Ey-yeh lehem hachay” in Hebrew, “Iythay (to be) lehem chay” in Aramaic and “Einai (to be) artos zoe” in Greek. “I Am the Bread of Life.” Notice the close connections between bread and (to) life.
l'chaim -"To Life!" /lechem -(Heb.) bread

---The Wine of the Last Supper is like the kiddush and the kiddush HaShem lit.=sanctification of the Name: selfless act, esp. martyrdom. Wine is used as a means of sanctification. Wine has always been symbolic of blood sacrifice and atonement.=Cup of Redemption of the Passover.

---Wine is symbolic of blood and blood is the very essence of life. Wine has also been used as a symbol of love and divine love, especially by mystics. It is also symbolic of life, communion, covenants, death and even sex (see Song of Solomon for that) or intimate relations. Wine as a symbol is seen in a lot of Persian mystic or Sufi poetry.
Examples:

Don’t let go of the cup’s lips
Till you receive your worldly tips.
Bittersweet is the world’s cup
From lover’s lips and the cup sips.

---A Ruba'i or Quatrain of Hafez or Hafiz, a Sufi poet. Or this Ghazal of Hafez:

O beautiful wine-bearer, bring forth the cup and put it to my lips
Path of love seemed easy at first, what came was many hardships.
With its perfume, the morning breeze unlocks those beautiful locks
The curl of those dark ringlets, many hearts to shreds strips.
In the house of my Beloved, how can I enjoy the feast
Since the church bells call the call that for pilgrimage equips.
With wine color your robe, one of the old Magi’s best tips
Trust in this traveler’s tips, who knows of many paths and trips.
The dark midnight, fearful waves, and the tempestuous whirlpool
How can he know of our state, while ports house his unladen ships.
I followed my own path of love, and now I am in bad repute
How can a secret remain veiled, if from every tongue it drips?
If His presence you seek, Hafiz, then why yourself eclipse?
Stick to the One you know, let go of imaginary trips.

---Another extreme example of this is from Rumi, the founder of the mystical Sufi Order of Islam: “Let me taste the wine of eternal communion/Cry out in drunkenness, intoxicated, broken, alone…” from the Divan-e Shams 114
(http://www.rumionfire.com/shams/rumi114.htm). --- http://www.rumionfire.com/.

---Or from Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat:

“Here with a little Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!”

(http://www.arabiannights.org/rubaiyat/index2.html)
See also: http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Khayyam.html
And: http://www.okonlife.com/---(In this quatrain of Khayyam’s, we see a connection with the Eucharist of the Last Supper or Holy Communion).

----More modern references to the mystical symbolism of bread and wine come from popular culture. Here are some examples from different song lyrics:

“Trouble/Oh trouble can't you see/You're eating my heart away/And there's nothing much left of me/I've drunk your wine/You have made your world mine/So won't you be fair.” ---Trouble--Cat Stevens.

“Bring tea for the Tillerman/Steak for the sun/Wine for the women who made the rain come/Seagulls sing your hearts away/'Cause while the sinners sin, the children play/Oh Lord how they play and play/For that happy day, for that happy day”---Tea For The Tillerman--Cat Stevens. See http://catstevens.com/index.html for others.

“Don't worry smile and dance/You just can work life out/Don't let down moods entrance you/Take the wine and shout/My life's a mess I wait for you to pass/I stand here at the bar, I hold an empty glass”---Empty Glass--Pete Townshend. (http://www.wdkeller.com/index17.htm)

“Here is your wine,/And your drunken fall;/And here is your love./Your love for it all.”---Here It Is--Leonard Cohen.

----Bill Mallonee And The Vigilantes Of Love: http://www.parting-shot.com/

---Chris de Burgh: http://chris-deburgh.de/

---- Genesis: http://genesis.musichall.cz/php/eng/

----U2: "Until the End of the World"
"We ate the food, we drank the wine...I took the money, I spiked your drink...In the garden I was playing the tart, I kissed your lips and broke your heart" -- see Judas and Jesus in Matthew 14-15, 20-29, 47-49 ---http://www.atu2.com/lyrics/biblerefs.html
http://u2sermons.blogspot.com/
http://lyrics.interference.com/u2/

---Bob Dylan:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/7855/01skeletonkeys.html

http://www.literatureclassics.com/ancientpaths/dylan.html

http://www.radiohazak.com/Dylan.html

http://www.gottaservesomebody.com/

http://www.geocities.com/temptations_page/DylGuide.html

http://notdarkyet.tripod.com/index.html

http://www.alilyamongthorns.8m.com/0alilyamongthorns.html

http://web.utk.edu/~wparr/SlowTrain.html

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2667/articles.html

http://www.bobdylan.com/links/linksContent.html

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze796a4/index.html

http://hem.passagen.se/obrecht/backpages/chords/index.htm

"Business men, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth/None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."---All Along The Watchtower---"The Lord will enter into judgement with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses." (Isaiah 3:14). All belongs to the Lord, but His creation has spoiled the earth, His bounty, His vineyard, and the poor.

Jokerman--At the beginning of the song, we see the Jokerman "Standing on the waters casting [his] bread" (1). We know that Jesus Christ said He was "the bread of life" (Henry 1; John 6.48). He also commented that "[m]an shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. 4.4). The Jokerman casting his bread, therefore, may be symbolic of Christ’s sharing his Word, since he "is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die" (John 61.50). Most explicitly, this verse of the song refers to Ecclesiastes 11:1: "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days" (Henry 2). The implied hope, then, is that Christ’s teaching--which He has "cast" upon the people--will breed loyal disciples. But the hope is an insecure one. See http://www.radiohazak.com/Jokerman.html for a Jewish Interpretation of this song. Another interpretation of the first verse: Now let’s look at the actual verses in Jokerman and see how they describe Jesus.
Standing on the waters casting your bread
In demonstrating dominion over His creation Jesus walked upon the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret). When Jesus was being tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread to quench His hunger, He replied that man does not live by bread alone but by the Word of God. In the gospel of John, we learn that Jesus was the Incarnation of the Word of God and that He is the Bread of Life to all that come to Him. Or: http://web.utk.edu/~wparr/henryjokerman.html


Someone Got A Hold Of My Heart- They say "Eat, drink and be merry, take the bull by the horns."
From Luke 12:19. "And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, [and] be merry." This is what a rich man who plans on living a life on hedonism says to himself in one of Jesus' parables. The chronicle goes on (12:20) to record God's reply to the man: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" The moral of the story is, Jesus explains, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment." (12:22-23)

Lyrics Search for Bread: YEA! HEAVY AND A BOTTLE OF BREAD
Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread

DIAMOND JOE
5. Now his bread it was corn dodger

FROM A BUICK 6
She's a junkyard angel and she always gives me bread

SANTA-FE
She's rollin' up a lotta bread

YE SHALL BE CHANGED
And you been eating the bread of sorrow

SOMETHING'S BURNING, BABY
You can't live by bread alone, you won't be satisfied

GATES OF EDEN
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins

CLEAN-CUT KID
He drank Coca-Cola, he was eating Wonder Bread,

JOKERMAN
Standing on the waters casting your bread

FOOT OF PRIDE
Feed you coconut bread, spice buns in your bed

GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread, Total number of matches: 11

---See also---Contemporary Christian Artists, Hymns And Such
Larry Norman, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman, etc.

EXEGESIS: BREAD לחם (Lehem or Lechem) OF LIFE IN JEWISH THOUGHT

Excursus from: TheoPoetic Musings: פֶּסַח And The Ransom Theory Of The Atonement. 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

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

---Spiritual significance of bread and wine
---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).