In my last post, I talked about the significance of Deuteronomy verse 6 where Moses tells the people “these words, which I am ordering you, are to be on your heart“.
Understand that the phrase “these words” is referring to not only all the laws and commands which have already been given but those instructions that are also about to be given.
Remember…what we actually have here in this section of Deuteronomy is an interruption in the flow of Moses giving the law.
What was the purpose of this interruption?
The purpose was so that Moses could make the oh so crucial point that God’s commands are to be done out of love.
They were NOT to be heartless or mechanical rituals.
I also brought to your attention that other super critical point that the Torah is be “written on your heart“.
This really needs to be emphasized because the gentile church has for too long promoted the COMPLETELY FALSE IDEA that…
…the “Old” Testament was some rigid external legal code carved on stone tablets…
…while the New Testament was comprised of new commands that Yeshua came up with that would be written internally on our hearts.
As I mentioned yesterday, that teaching is boooooool sheeeeeeeet to the highest degree and one of the many “OT versus NT” myths that have cast Judaism in a bad light and needs to be eliminated from our theology forever and for all time.
Speaking of Judaism, in order to prepare you for the latter half of Deuteronomy Chapter 6, I need to share the following quote from one of the most revered Jewish Sages of all time.
I’m talking about Maimonides, otherwise known as the Ramban, and this is what he said in the 12th century.
‘whoever has Tefillin on his head and arm, tsitsit on his garment, and a mezuzah on his door may be presumed NOT to sin,’ for he has many reminders; and these are the “angels” that save him from sinning, as it is said, ‘The angel of the Lord camps around those who revere Him and rescues them’”.
What the Ramban is telling us is that since the wearing of Tefillin and Tsitsit and attaching a Mezuzah to our doorframe are constant reminders to keep HASHEM’s commandments, the probability that we would sin against God is very slim.
One other point.
And this should be something you already know if you’ve been diligently studying Torah with me from the beginning.
The Hebrew word that we usually translate into “angel” is MALACH.
However, MALACH doesn’t necessarily always mean “angel“.
In its simplest sense, it just means a “messenger“.
In other words, you could call your neighborhood postman a MALACH and that is actually the sense in which the Ramban is using the word here.
He’s saying the Tefillin, Tsitsit and the Mezuzah are serving as messengers reminding us to keep God’s commandments.
As we move forward in our study of Deuteronomy chapter 6, we’re going to be examining the Orthodox Jewish practice of using Tefillin and attaching a Mezuzah to our doorpost (at the entrance leading into our home) in light of what Scripture really says.
You may be surprised at what we discover.
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