Roots - The Great Commandment

We find a very interesting scene in the book of Mark chapter twelve. The Pharisees were a devout religious sect of Jews who not only believed in the written law of Moses, but also clung to what is known as the Oral law of Moses. The Oral law had supposedly been passed down from generation to generation – father to son since the time when Moses received it on Mt. Sinai. These were the “commandments of men” that Yahshua preached against in Matthew 15:3-9. The Pharisees had tried to trip Yahshua up by his doctrines, but when they did not succeed, they tried to bring him down with a legal matter. When Yahshua passed this test, the Sadducees step up.

Now, the Sadducees were also a religious sect, but they differed from the Pharisees in that they rejected the “Oral law” of Moses and only clung to the law and the prophets. The Hebrew word for Sadducee is “Tzad'i'Keem” which means Righteous Ones. They didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead. And after they had tested Him with their question, Yahshua was tested by yet another religious man – a scribe.

Now, a scribe was very religious and knowledgeable in the fact that his full time job was to transcribe the Law and the prophets from one scroll to another. It takes about 1 – 2 years to hand write one Torah scroll (the five books of Moses). They are very meticulous and cannot write one jot or tittle from memory. If they are right handed, then they must only write with their right hand. And the scroll must be copied from another Kosher Torah scroll. They perform a Mikveh (ritual purification bath – like a baptism/immersion) prior to the onset of writing a Torah scroll.

So the scribe asked Yahshua, “Which is the first commandment of all?” Now, in our Western “christianized” thinking, many would have answered, “Thou shalt have no other god's before me,” which is the first of the “Ten Commandments”. But to Yahshua, who was raised as a Jew, He answered, “The first (or most important) commandment is, 'Hear, O Israel, YHVH is our God. YHVH is One. And you shall love YHVH your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength' This is the first commandment. And the second is similar, precisely this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.” In Matthew's recounting of the story, Yahshua added, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” What does this tell us?

By looking at Exodus chapter 20, we see that the first of the commandments start off telling us how we should serve or love God. The second half deals with how we treat our neighbor. Yahshua tells us in John 14:15, “If you love Me, keep my commandments.” The book of first John teaches that if we don't love our fellow man who we see in flesh, how can we say that we love God, who we cannot see in the flesh? Paul (Sha'ul in Hebrew), in Romans 13:8-10, gives us the commandments that deal with “loving one's neighbor”. He sums the commandments up by saying, “therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

What does it mean to love Him with all of your heart? We know that the heart is the seat of the emotions. It is more than the most vital organ of our body. It is emotionally, who we are, our affection, our love, our joy, peace, etc. The heart was also used throughout Yahshua's teachings as the center for our intellect. “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.” (Luke 6:45) Or in the book of Proverbs 23:7, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” So then, our intellect must love YHVH in every aspect.

What does it mean to love Him with all of your soul? This word soul, in Hebrew, is “Ne'fesh” means, breathing or breath. So basically, we must love YHVH with every breath of our body, right? Of course, right. However, so much the more, this word soul also is used in another context. Throughout the Old Testament, we see this word used in place of appetite. Isaiah 58 is a well known chapter that talks about fasting or “afflicting one's soul”. So then, to love YHVH with all of your soul is to love Him with all of your appetite or your desires.

When we look at the word, might in Hebrew, we find it means much more than loving YHVH with all of your strength. That's just scratching the surface. We find it has a much deeper meaning. Might translates provision or resource. So when we love YHVH with all of our might, in essence, we are loving him with all of our resources and provisions. Remember, “YHVH loves a cheerful giver”.