Thursday 27 April 2017

Did Jesus study the Zohar ? With Gamiel or Menahem the Essene ?

Sefer ha-Zohar (The Book of Radiance) has amazed readers ever since it emerged in Spain over seven hundred years ago. Written in a lyrical Aramaic, the Zohar, the masterpiece of Kabbalah, features mystical interpretation of the Torah, from Genesis to Deuteronomy.

We know that the many Books of the Zohar were compiled by Moses de Leon in the 13th century Spain, but did  fragments of this mystical Aramaic Text exist in Galilee at the Time of Jesus ? Are these Mystical books that Jesus would have studied under Gamiel or Menahem the Essene, other Jewish mystics or gnostic teachers ?

The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, translated with commentary by Daniel C. Matt, cover more than half of the Zohar's commentary on the Book of Genesis (through Genesis 32:3). This is the first translation ever made from a critical Aramaic text of the Zohar, which has been established by Professor Matt based on a wide range of original manuscripts.

The extensive commentary, appearing at the bottom of each page, clarifies the kabbalistic symbolism and terminology, and cites sources and parallels from biblical, rabbinic, and kabbalistic texts.

The translator's introduction is accompanied by a second introduction written by Arthur Green, discussing the origin and significance of the Zohar. Please see the Zohar Home Page for ancillary materials, including the publication schedule, press release, Aramaic text, questions, and answers. Further information on the Zohar: Sefer ha-Zohar, "The Book of Radiance," has amazed and overwhelmed readers ever since it emerged mysteriously in medieval Spain toward the end of the thirteenth century.

"Written in a unique Aramaic, this masterpiece of Kabbalah exceeds the dimensions of a normal book; it is virtually a body of literature, comprising over twenty discrete sections. The bulk of the Zohar consists of a running commentary on the Torah, from Genesis through Deuteronomy. This translation begins and focuses here in what are projected to be ten volumes. Two subsequent volumes will cover other, shorter sections. 

 The Zohar's commentary is composed in the form of a mystical novel. The hero is Rabbi Shim'on son of Yohai, a saintly disciple of Rabbi Akiva who lived in the second century in the land of Israel. In the Zohar, Rabbi Shim'on and his companions wander through the hills of Galilee, discovering and sharing secrets of Torah. On one level, biblical figures such as Abraham and Sarah are the main characters, and the mystical companions interpret their words, actions, and personalities. On a deeper level, the text of the Bible is simply the starting point, a springboard for the imagination. For example, when God commands Abraham, Lekh lekha, Go forth... to the land that I will show you (Genesis 12:1), Rabbi El'azar ignores idiomatic usage and insists on reading the words more literally than they were intended, hyperliterally: Lekh lekha, Go to yourself! Search deep within to discover your true self. At times, the companions themselves become the main characters, and we read about their dramatic mystical sessions with Rabbi Shim'on or their adventures on the road, for example, an encounter with a cantankerous old donkey driver who turns out to be a master of wisdom in disguise. Ultimately, the plot of the Zohar focuses on the ten sefirot, the various stages of God's inner life, aspects of divine personality, both feminine and masculine. By penetrating the literal surface of the Torah, the mystical commentators transform the biblical narrative into a biography of God. The entire Torah is read as one continuous divine name, expressing divine being. Even a seemingly insignificant verse can reveal the inner dynamics of the sefirot―how God feels, responds and acts, how She and He (the divine feminine and masculine) relate intimately with each other and with the world."

Did Jesus study such Mystical works under Gamiel the Elder ?  (/ɡəˈmeɪljəl/; also spelled Gamliel; Hebrew: רבן גמליאל הזקן; Greek: Γαμαλιὴλ ὁ Πρεσβύτερος) or Rabban Gamaliel I, was a leading authority in the Sanhedrin in the early 1st century AD. He was the son of Simeon ben Hillel, and grandson of the great Jewish teacher Hillel the Elder. Gamaliel is thought to have died in 52 CE (AM 3813).He fathered a son, whom he called Simeon, after his father, and a daughter, who married a priest named Simon ben Nathanael. In some Christian traditions, he is said to have converted to Christianity and is venerated as a Saint along with his second son, Abibo (also Abibas, Abibus). In the Christian tradition, Gamaliel is recognized as a Pharisee doctor of Jewish Law.The Acts of the Apostles chapter 5 speaks of Gamaliel as a man, held in great esteem by all Jews, who spoke to not condemn the apostles of Jesus in Acts 5:34[5] to death, and as the Jewish law teacher of Paul the Apostle in Acts 22:3. Gamaliel is a Hebrew name meaning reward of God.


Or did he study under Shammai ? (50 BCE – 30 CE, Hebrew: שמאי) was a Jewish scholar of the 1st century, and an important figure in Judaism's core work of rabbinic literature, the Mishnah. Shammai was the most eminent contemporary and the halakhic opponent of Hillel, and is almost invariably mentioned along with him. Although they were contemporaries, Hillel was nearly sixty years old at the time of Shammai's birth in ~50 BCE. Shammai founded a school of his own, known as the House of Shammai, which differed fundamentally from that of Hillel; and many of Shammai's direct sayings are thought to be embodied in those handed down in the name of his school.


Perhaps with ... Menahem the Essene  : Prominent teacher of the Essene faction in the time of King Herod, about the middle of the first pre-Christian century. He was renowned for his prophetic powers. According to Josephus ("Ant." xv. 10, § 5), he was distinguished also for the saintliness of his life as well as for possessing knowledge of the future. Legend has it that when he saw young Herod going to school he clapped him on the back and addressed him as king, announcing to him that he would reign successfully, but without displaying the love and justice he ought toward men or the piety due to God, and that therefore his end would be one befitting his crimes. When afterward in the zenith of his power Herod recalled this strange prediction, he sent for Menahem and asked him how long his reign would be. As Menahem did not immediately answer, Herod urged him, asking whether his reign would last ten years; whereupon Menahem replied: "Yes, twenty; nay, thirty years." Pleased with this answer, Herod dismissed him with a clasp of the hand and thenceforth bestowed special honors upon the Essenes. This Menahem has been correctly identified with the one mentioned in the Mishnah as ab bet din and head of a school in association with Hillel ha-Nasi and as Shammai's predecessor; but the duumvirate of ab bet din and nasi is probably due to a misconstruction of history when the real issues between the Hasidæan or Pharisean and the Sadducean or Boethusian factions were no longer understood. A dim reminiscence of the relation of Menahem to Herod, however, has been preserved in a baraita, quoted in Ḥag. 16b, which states that "Menahem went out to join those serving the king, and eighty pairs of disciples attired in silk robes went with him." Another tradition is that he became an apostate (Yer. Ḥag. ii. 77d). The two traditions have been confounded and appear in two other forms also: according to one, Menahem was forced to leave the Pharisaic school, and when seen with his eighty pairs of disciples was told that they no longer had a share in the God of Israel; according to the other, he went from one degree ("middah") to another until he became a Gnostic (heretic?). See, however, Grätz, "Gesch." iii. 213.


And finally this week we have the final Volume of  this most ancient Aramaic text translated into English available for our research and study :
The twelfth volume of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition  presents an assortment of discrete Zoharic compositions. The first two chapters contain different versions of the Zoharic Heikhalot, descriptions of the heavenly halls or palaces that the soul of the kabbalist traverses during prayer.

Piqqudin, or Commandments, is a kabbalistic treatment of the mystical reasons for the commandments.

Raza de-Razin (Mystery of Mysteries) is a diagnostic manual for the ancient and medieval science of physiognomy, determining people's character based on physical appearance.

Sitrei Otiyyot (Secrets of the Letters) is a mystical essay that maps out the emergence of divine and mundane reality from the tetragrammaton, YHVH.

Qav ha-Middah (Line of Measure) is another mystical essay that describes the divine instrument used by God to gauge the mystical overflow to the ten sefirot.

The commentary on Merkevet Yehezqel (Ezekiel's Chariot) interprets the details of the prophet Ezekiel's chariot-vision. Beginning with the description of the four creatures, the Zohar demonstrates how Divinity and the cosmos comprise a series of quaternities that pervade all Being.

The last main chapter includes Zoharic commentary to various portions of the Torah. The volume closes with a short appendix of passages that printers have labeled Tosefta despite their not fitting into that genre―a suitable end to the Zohar whose parameters and composition will remain ever mysterious. 

Just Published. Available for Pre-Order (Save 30 %) ... 

The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Volume Twelve   http://amzn.to/2q2U6TB

Wednesday 26 April 2017

Wednesday 19 April 2017

Why was Jesus (Yeshu) sometimes called Son of Panthera, Pandera in the Talmud ?


Pandera* comes from the Greek Pandarus "Betrayer" and applied to Yeshu as an Enticer of his People since he pandered to the Heretical ideology of Pantheism claiming to be One with God and telling others that they are also One with God, and that All is God .....  The body is the Temple and God lives within each of us. That the Kingdom of God is WITHIN you (Greek: entos) - Luke 17:21


* Yeshu ben Pandera, cited as the teacher of a 2nd-century CE heretic (Chullin 2:22-24, Avodah Zarah 16b-17a)
  • A sorcerer who had been stoned on the eve of Passover. (Sanhedrin 43a)
  • An example of a "son who burns his food in public" (Sanhedrin 103a, Berakhot 17b) identified as Manasseh of Judahson of Hezekiah in the passages as well as in a corresponding account in the Shulchan Arukh.
  • An idolatrous former student of the early 1st century BCE rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachiah. (Sanhedrin 107b).
  • The spirit of a foreign enemy of Israel summoned by Onkelos (Gittin 56b, 57a)
** In Greek, the name PANDAROS is most often used as the name of a Male. And in Greek, the Male name PANDAROS means (Πάνδαρος) Variant form of Greek Pantheras, PANDAROS means "all-hunter," i.e. "panther." In Mythology, this is the name of the betrayer of the Greeks who hurled a lance at Menelaos, breaking a solemn oath.


In Homer's Iliad (8th Century BC), Pandarus is a renowned archer and the son of Lycaon. Pandarus, who fights on the side of Troy in the Trojan War, first appears in Book Two of the Iliad. In Book Four, he shoots Menelaus and wounds him with an arrow, sabotaging a truce that could potentially have led to the peaceful return of Helen of Troy. He is goaded into breaking the truce by the gods, who wish for the destruction of Troy. He then wounds Diomedes with an arrow and acts as Aeneas' charioteer. He is later killed by Diomedes, whose spear strikes him in the face, severing his tongue.
Pandarus is also the name of a companion of Aeneas in Virgil's Aeneid.


Yeshu is also mentioned in Isaac Luria's "Book of the Reincarnations", chapter 37. Within the long list of Jewish Tzadiks it's written:
"בלכתך מצפת לצד צפון ללכת אל כפר עין זיתון, דרך אילן אחד של חרוב, שם קבור יש"ו הנוצרי"
"On your way from Safed toward the North to the village of Ein al-Zeitun, passing a carob tree, Yeshu Ha-Notzri is buried there." .....

Astrological/horoscope meaning of PANDAROS. (YESHU ben Pandera) PANDAROS: 

With a name number 7, your ruling planet is Neptune. You work intuitively and have a mental and sacrificing nature in exploring your goals. You like to help people in need when you get the chance and have the opportunity. Likes to dream of the many possibilities of life you could undertake. Your mind posseses strong inner healing powers especially when you encounter failures. You bounce back from adversity and tragic events like nothing ever happened. Your dreams are sometimes revealing and prophetic. You have a personal love for water and do many sea/beach trips in your life. Your spiritual pursuits may sometimes dominate your worldly desires.

Monday 17 April 2017

Why did Jesus worship a Stone ( אֶבֶן ) ? Talmud Sanhedrin 107b

Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sanhedrin : Sanhedrin 107b

 "Yeshu  (Jesus) came before Rabbi Joshua many times pleading, 'Receive me!' But Rabbi Joshua would pay no heed to him. One day R. Joshua was reciting the Shema', when Jesus came before him. He intended to receive him and made a sign to him. Jesus, thinking that it was to repel him, went, put up a stone,( אֶבֶן )and worshipped it.

'Repent,' said R. Joshua to Jesus, and Jesus replied, 'I have thus learned from thee: He who sins and causes others to sin is not afforded the means of repentance.' And a Master has said, 'Jesus the Nazarene practised magic and led Israel astray.'"

And in Sanhedrin 43a we learn that Jesus (Yeshu ha Notzri) was thus sentenced to be stoned to death for Sorcery  (אבן למוות)  :

"On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, 'He is going forth to be stoned because he has practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.' But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover! — Ulla retorted: 'Do you suppose that he was one for whom a defence could be made? Was he not a Mesith [enticer], concerning whom Scripture says, Neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him? With Yeshu however it was different, for he was connected with the government [Royalty, i.e., influential / House of David].'

So what is Jesus trying to teach us here by setting up a stone ( אֶבֶן ) to worship ? What is the mystical Message in this story?


Jesus is showing here that he and the Father are United in one Form. He says this to his disciples "I and the father are One", and to the Pharisees, "the rejected stone (אֶבֶן) shall become the Conerstone" So Jesus is this Stone that is rejected. In Hebrew the word for stone is "Abn" (Ehben) -  אֶבֶן    Significance: AB (אֶבֶ ) is Father and Bn (ֶבֶן) is Son, so Abn (stone) is the Unity of the Father and Son in One Form. - Ron Park


Have there been other Jewish Mystics that have compared God to a Stone (Abn) ?

In fact there are..... Moses Cordovero says : "Do not say "This is a stone and not God." God forbid! Rather, all existence is God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity." 

Is Jesus teaching the same lesson ? All existence is God ? Is Jesus a Pantheist like Spinoza and Einstein after him ?  The Gospel of Thomas and many early 1st Century Sayings and Teachings of Jesus show that indeed he is a Pantheist. A Non Dualist. A great Teacher of the Immanence and Oneness of God.  God is everywhere and within all things, and in fact is all things. God is all that exists.  As the Torah says .... You are all God (Psalm 82:6, John 10:34)

God is One and there is nothing else except God.


Is there an Ancient and original Jewish Tradition that teaches that "Everything is God" ?


This is an excellent book on the Subject: "Everything Is God: The Radical Path of Nondualism by Jay Michaelson http://amzn.to/2nMbtXD


Spinoza says: "Whatsoever is, (ie: everything) is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived." - The Ethics 

Jesus says: " I am the ALL (ie: Everything); the ALL came forth from me, and the ALL attained to me. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up a stone, and you will find me there." Gospel of Thomas(77) 

Spinoza says: "God is the indwelling..." 

Jesus says: "The Kingdom of God is WITHIN you..." - Luke 17:21 

Jesus teaches : "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you ?" 1 Cor 3:16 

Abraham Abulafia says : "Now we are no longer separated from our Source, and behold we are the Source and the Source is us. We are so intimately United with IT, we cannot by any means be separated from IT, for we are IT." 

Jesus says : " May they be One as we are One, I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete Unity" John 17:23 

Albert Einstein said : "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world...." 

Carl Sagan said: "Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others - for example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein - considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws." 

Albert Einstein said : ""A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace ALL living creatures and the WHOLE of nature in its beauty." 

Sunday 16 April 2017

Happy Ēostre, the Lord is Risen

Happy "Ēostre" ... Where all is Metaphor. Ēostre is 'goddess of the dawn', designated the 'daughter of heaven' .... Mary Magdalene. On this dawn, this Spring day in April, we celebrate the rebirth of Jesus into his shiny new body of Light. Jesus who was placed into the ground, like a seed, into a tomb for 3 days and on the 3rd day is born again as from a womb, the tomb when the stone is rolled away. He is reborn as the Master Gardener, here to plant seeds of Light .... like colorful and shiney Easter eggs. Rejoice, Rejoice the Lord has come. And it is Mary Magdalen, Eostre, that discovers our Lord in the Garden, as the Gardener, our Lord and Maker of all... Father, Mother, Son and daughter. Rejoice. Amen.
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ēostre

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene - John 20:11-18

11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.