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Holy Garments
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Note: We are not affiliated with any House of Yahweh, that is a 501c3 church, nor any incorporated church.
With all glory to Yahweh and to our King, Yahshua Messiah, and with the understanding of Yahweh’s Spirit, which is Holy, we dedicate this study to Yahweh and to the advancement of learning for the Saints of Yahweh to help grow into the Holy House of Yahweh. “To the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them.”
In order to stay with the more scholarly correct pronounciations of the creator and His Sons name, we have determined to use the name Yahweh, instead of Lord, God, Jehovah, or Allah. For His Son, we use Yahshua, instead of Yeshua, Jesus, Iesus, or Lord. So wherever the reader sees Yahweh, that is the name of the Creator, and wherever they see Yahshua, that is the name of the Son, or Messiah.
The following article was contributed by Kepha Arcemont Hawkins, a.k.a. Kepha ben Abraham.
As you read this article, nothing here is meant to be offensive to any religion, whether Jewish or Christian. All the information is for educational use only.
In the Law of Yahweh, Yahweh tells us, the children of Israel, that we are to have a reminder of His Laws on our garments. This Law is given to us as a reminder that Yahweh’s Laws are to be in the forefront of our minds. They should be first in our thinking in everything that we do. They are part of the Covenant, which brings us to Messiah. The Law of Yahweh gives us instruction to make fringes in the borders of our garments, and is a part of the terms and conditions that Yahweh requires us to follow, in order to be in a Covenant Relationship, with our Heavenly Father. We find the following information concerning the Holy Garment with it’s specific adornments in the book of Numbers.
Numbers 15:38 “Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue.”
Today if one were to go to the land of Israel, you would see many of the Orthodox Jewish men wearing a prayer garment, called a Tallit under their clothes. The Tallit they wear has tassels, called tzitzits, which are looped on the four corners of the garment. They contain 8 strings and 5 knots. Below is a picture of different styles tzitzits tied in various ways.
Some Jewish Orthodox observers, wear a smaller tallit under their shirts or jackets, and others have a larger garment that they wear over their bodies and heads when doing their prayers 3 times a day. They also put on the tefillah on their right hands and arm when in prayer to the creator. They believe the wearing of the Holy Garment is something that every good Jew should do. They base this on the Law of Yahweh revealed in Numbers 15:38 and Deuteronomy 22:12. We will examine the Jewish history and belief, as well as the historical records of other nations who also had holy garments patterned after the description in the Torah.
HISTORY OF THE JEWISH TALLIT
We find the following information concerning the Jewish Prayer Shawl, called a Tallit, online at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallit
A tallit (Hebrew: טַלִּית) (talet in Sephardic Hebrew and Ladino) (tallis, in Ashkenazic Hebrew and Yiddish) pl. tallitot (talleisim, tallism, in Ashkenazic Hebrew and Yiddish) is a Jewish prayer shawl. The tallit is worn over the outer clothes. A tallit is worn during the morning prayers (Shacharit) on weekdays, Shabbat and holidays. The tallit has special twined and knotted fringes known as tzitzit attached to its four corners. The tallit can be made of any materials except a mixture of wool and linen (a mixture known as shatnez that is prohibited by the Torah). Most traditional tallitot are made of wool. Tallit are often given as gifts to children on their Bar Mitzvahs.
Here is a picture of an Orthodox Jew wearing the Tallit.
Reading further about the Tallit, that every good Jew and some Messianic Church followers wear, we find the following information.
The Bible does not command wearing of a unique prayer shawl or tallit. Instead, it teaches that people wore an outer garment of some type to cover themselves and instructs them to add fringes (tzitzit) to the 4 corners of these garments(Numbers 15:38, Deuteronomy 22:12). These passages do not specify tying particular types or numbers of knots in the fringes. Nor do they specify a gender division between men and women, or between native Israelite/Hebrew people and those assimilated by them. The law does say however, that a stranger can keep the law as long as they join into the family and are circumcised.The exact customs regarding the tying of the tzitzit and the format of the tallit are post-Biblical and rabbinical and can vary between various Jewish communities.
Encyclopaedia Judaica, describes the prayer shawl as "a rectangular mantle that looked like a blanket and was worn by men in ancient times". Also, it "is usually white and made either of wool, cotton, or silk". According to the biblical commandment, a blue (Hebrew תכלת, "tĕkeleth", tek·ā'·leth) thread (Hebrew פתיל "pethiyl") known as "tekeleth" itself, is included in the tzitzit.
Please notice some points in this revealing of the Jewish Holy Garment.
If you notice the above information, we can see that nothing in this Jewish Garment appears to be from the scriptures, other than the tassel or fringe, but more of an interpretation of the scriptures by the Rabbi/Jewish leaders. Let’s look at what the Encylopedia Judaica says of it’s origins, taken online from: http://www.judaism-101.com/tallit
Although wearing a tallit is not specifically commanded in the Bible, there is a commandment in the Bible to tie fringes to the corners of your outer garments (Numbers 15:38, Deuteronomy 22:12). This was interpreted by the sages to be a specific garment: the tallit, and that it should be used in Jewish prayer. Thus throughout the generations the Jewish prayer shawl has been preserved as a garment for prayer.
Now I ask you the reader, should you as a true believer wear something that is not in the Holy Scriptures, and was interpreted by the sages and rabbi’s? Why would we wear something that is interpreted by a man, who as far as we know wasn’t inspired by Yahweh? Shouldn’t we follow Yahweh, instead of the sages? All religions must be careful in thinking that they somehow are the chosen ones and all other religions are false. In order to come into unity, we must learn to reason together as a body. When in Israel, if you don’t pray with a tallit in the Orthodox community, then you are considered to not be a true Hebrew, or Jew. They take the wearing of the Tallit and Tefillin as strictly commanded. They are strict in their interpretation of the Law. We will find out more about this in the study. Let’s get some more information on this subject and see what the Jews/Messianic Churches practice in regard to their traditions.
A tallit is worn during the morning prayers on Shabbat; Jewish holidays and throughout the week. Traditionally only men wore a tallit, but more recently in liberal Jewish communities men and women are wearing prayer shawls. The bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah; the Jewish ‘coming of age’ ceremony, is the first time a young person will wear a tallit. This is the first time a young person is called up to the Torah for an aliyah, and so customarily they wear a tallit. Thus a tallit is often given as a bar mitzvah gift or bat mitzvah gift. In Ashkenazi communities a young man will wear a small tallit until the time that he is married, and then he will exchange this for a tallit gadol.
The tallit is put on before the morning prayers and before putting on tefillin. When the tallit is put on every morning there is a special prayer shawl blessing that is said in Hebrew:
ברוך אתה יי אלוהינו מלך העולם
Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam
Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe
אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו להתעטף בציצית
asher kidishanu b’mitz’votav v’tzivanu l’hit’ateif ba-tzitzit
Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to wrap ourselves in the tzitzit.
This tallit prayer is said while holding the tallit in front of you, and then it is put over the shoulders and you hold it over your head and face for a moment, then the tallit is draped over the shoulders like a shawl. The tallit should sit comfortably on the shoulders during prayers, but will need re-adjusting from time to time. For this reason a tallit clip is used by some people to keep the prayer shawl in place during prayers.
Now understand what you are reading above is 100% traditions, none of the above information is from the Law of Yahweh! This practice, revealed above, comes from sages and rabbi’s interpretations of the Law concerning wearing tzitzits on your garments and the type and style of the Tallit or prayer shawl. Even the prayer is made up by rabbi’s! So now should we follow the customs of the East? The customs of the Jews? The customs of the Rabbi’s? The customs of Messianic Churches? I think most true believers would answer NO to the above questions, and that we should not be ensnared into following traditions! There is nothing wrong with traditions as long as they are not against scripture, but religious leaders should be careful into teaching commandments of men, as commandments of Yahweh. Traditions separate people of faith!
Etymology of the Word Tallit
Tallit is an Aramaic word from the root tll טלל meaning cover. Tallit literally means cloak or sheet but in Talmudic times already referred to the Jewish prayer shawl. The tallit is similar to the Roman pallium worn today by senior Roman Catholic priests, the Roman toga and the Arab keffiyeh. The tallit or other similar garment is suitable for the climate in West Asia: typically the days are hot and the talit can be draped around the body and head to provide cover from the sun or just bunched up on the shoulders for later evening use; the evenings can be dramatically cool and the talit could be draped around the neck and shoulders like a scarf to provide warmth.
The Kabbalists considered the tallit as a special garment for the service of God, intended, in connection with the tefillin, to inspire awe and reverence for God at prayer. The tallit is worn by worshipers at the morning prayer on weekdays, Shabbat, and holy days; by the hazzan (cantor) at every prayer while before the ark; and by the reader of Torah, as well as by all other functionaries during the Torah service.
The use of the tallit begins in the Biblical period around 1800 BCE. The ancient Jewish tallit design was different than that known today. Originally it was a large white rectangular garment with tzitzyot in each corner and was used as a garment, bed sheet, and burial shroud.
In the book The Ancient Jewish Shroud At Turin by John N. Lupia; Lupia shows the historical development of the tallit when its design began to change during the second half of the first century CE and began to take on the forms known today beginning around 1000 CE. The long tradition of a single orthodox form of the tallit became modified in a more culturally diverse atmosphere and continued to change throughout time until it became permuted and shortened in length as the kitel, tallit katan, tallit gadol, and the more common tallit prayer shawl form know today.
In the Diaspora, Jews are buried in a plain, wooden casket. The corpse is collected from the place of death (home, hospital, etc.) by the chevra kadisha (burial committee). After a ritual washing of the body, the body is dressed in a kittel (shroud) and then a tallit. One of the tzitzit is then cut off. In the Land of Israel, burial is without a casket, and the kittel and tallit are the only coverings for the corpse.
Now I ask you, does Yahweh want us to wear a burial clothe to remember His Laws? We are not dead to Yahweh, His Laws are not dead, and neither is His Son, Yahshua Messiah! The Law does not specify to bury a Hebrew in a Tallit, so this is most likely another Jewish tradition. Reading further about the Jewish Holy Garment we find two types of Tallits.
The tallit katan, or "small" tallit, is a fringed undergarment worn by Orthodox Jews. Some hasidic Jews wear a tallit katan on top of their shirts. The rules of a tallit katan are the same as that of a tallit "Gadol" in tying and materials. Below is a picture of a tallit katan.
Catholic linen Amice.
The tallit gadol (traditionally known as tallét gedolah amongst Sephardim), or "large" tallit, is worn over one's clothing resting on the shoulders. This is the prayer shawl that is worn during the morning services in synagogue by all male participants, and in many communities by the leader of the afternoon and evening prayers as well. The tallit gadol is usually woven of wool — especially amongst Ashkenazim. Some Spanish and Portuguese Jews use silk tallitot. Today some tallitot are made of polyester and cotton. Tallitot may be of any colour but are usually white with black, blue or white stripes along the edge. Sizes of tallitot vary, and are a matter of custom and preference. Some are large enough to cover the whole body while others hang around the shoulders, the former being more common amongst Orthodox Jews, the latter among Conservative, Reform and other denominations. The neckband of the tallit, sometimes woven of silver or gold thread, is called the atarah. The tallit gadol is often kept in a dedicated pouch or cloth bag, which can be quite simple or ornately decorated.
I have been witness to certain Messianic Churches who wear the Jewish Holy Garments, but for some reason they only allow the men to wear them. This is their tradition and understanding within their specific group. There is no scriptural explanation to back up their belief, other than they consider them to be a Priestly Holy Garment for men. Let’s examine some more history into this tradition!
Historically, women have not been obligated to wear a tallit, since they are not bound to perform positive mitzvot which are time-specific, and the obligation to wear a tallit only applies by day. Many early authorities did permit women to wear a tallit, such as Isaac ibn Ghiyyat (b. 1038), Rashi (1040–1105), Rabbeinu Tam (ca 1100–1171), Zerachya ben Yitzhak Halevi of Lunel (ca. 1125–1186), Rambam (1135–1204), Rabbi Eliezer ben Yoel Halevi (ca 1140–ca 1225), Rashba (1235–1310), Aharon Halevi of Barcelona (b. ca 1235?), Rabbi Yisrael Yaaqob Alghazi (1680–1761), Rabbi Yomtob ben Yisrael Alghazi (1726–1802)). There was, however, a gradual movement towards prohibition, mainly initiated by the Medieval Ashkenazi Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg (the Maharam). The Rema states that while women are technically allowed to don a tallit it would appear to be an act of arrogance (yuhara) for women to perform this commandment. The Maharil and the Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel both view a talit as a “male garment” and thus find that a woman wearing a talit to be in violation of the precept prohibiting a woman from wearing a man’s garment.
In contemporary Orthodox Judaism, there is a debate on the appropriateness of women wearing tzitzit which has hinged on whether women are allowed to perform commandments from which they are exempt. According to Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik the issue depends on the intention with which such an act is undertaken, eg whether it is intended to bring a person closer to the Almighty, or for political or protest purposes. Other commentators hold that women are prohibited generally, without making an individual inquiry. The view that women donning a tallit would be guilty of arrogance is cited as applying to attempts of making a political statement as to the ritual status of the genders, particularly in the Modern Orthodox community, are generally more inclined to regard contemporary women's intentions as religiously appropriate.
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein wrote that permission is granted to every woman who wishes to fulfil even those mitzvot which the Torah did not obligate; and they indeed fulfil a mitzvah and receive the reward for the fulfilment of ït including saying the appropriate associated blessing (as with shofar, lulav etc. And also tzitzit are applicable for a woman who desires to wear a four cornered garment - it should be different than a man’s garment - and by attaching tzitzit, she fulfils this mitzvah.
Rabbi Yisrael Yaaqob Alghazi and Rabbi Yomtob ben Yisrael Alghazi held that the observance of this mitzvah by women was not only permitted but actually commendable, since such diligence amongst the non-obligated would inspire these women's male relatives to be even more diligent in their own observance.
Depending on what Rabbi, you believe and follow, we can see there is much debate and disagreement with this Jewish tradition! So should we be following traditions of men? Let’s see what Yahshua Messiah said regarding this subject.
Mattithyah 15:1-3,7-9 “Then came to Yahshua scribes and Pharisees, which were of Yerusalem, saying; Why do your Disciples transgress the traditions of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread? But He answered and said unto them, Why do you also transgress the Laws of Yahweh by your traditions? You Hypocrites, well did Isayah prophesy of you, saying, “This people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the Laws of men!”
Yahchanan Mark 7:9 “And he said unto them, Full well you reject the Law of Yahweh, that you may keep your own tradition.”
We can see from the Greatest Teacher in the World, Yahshua Messiah, that we can be guilty of transgressing the Laws of Yahweh, if we follow the tradition of men! As we can see from the above information concerning the Tallit, as revealed to us by the Jews and Messianic Churches understanding, we would be rejecting Yahweh if we follow their understanding of this Law, if it is contrary to the scriptures! We are warned time and time again, by Yahshua and the Apostles to not follow the traditions of men.
Colossians 2:8 “Beware that no one leads you away like a prize because of philosophy or empty, false statements, according to the traditions of men, after the elements of the world, and not after the Messiah!”
JUDAISM, AND WHAT IS REQUIRED TO BE A JEW
In today’s world we find that there are three major religions that many people are born into, or convert to: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. This is done by personal choice and each person has their own reasoning as to why they want to convert. I will focus on Judaism, because it is Judaism that is closest to our belief system of wearing the holy garments, in worship to Yahweh. Most sacred name organizations, utilize more of the Judaic teachings to prove their points concerning how to observe Yahweh’s Laws. Many of these groups think that the Jews are closer to the truth since they have an ancient observance and have passed down parts of the Hebrew heritage from generation to generation, to our present time.
At one time I thought the same thing! However, lately through research, I have found that Judaism is a mixture of history, interpretations, and traditions! Most aspects of what we would consider the Law of Yahweh, upon further research, is found to be traditions of the Rabbi’s/Elders, who have inserted their comments and interpretations into what we would consider the Pure Word of Yahweh. Two examples is the tallit, and the numbering of the Laws. Both of these as taught by Judaism, give us an impression that they are taken directly from the Law, however, when studied out, we find no reference to Yahweh saying He has 613 Laws, nor do we find in His Law that He says to tie tzitzits with 8 strings or 5 knots. Both of these teachings is Judaic traditions handed down to us by the ancient Rabbi’s. We will explore one of these traditions in our study of the Holy Garments in this letter. Now I am not condemning traditions as long as they don’t come from pagan religions and force the believer into thinking if they don’t follow them, they are sinning. I think it is important for us to examine interpretations of Judaism view of the Law. We need to consider that if we are going to follow traditions or interpretations from the Jewish rabbi’s, we must investigate their origins and if they aren’t scripturally accurate, then we must ask Yahweh for guidance and understanding so that we follow the closest to the truth as possible. The scriptures say to prove all things! This article is not intended to offend our Jewish brethren, but to point out that their interpretation of the the Law on Holy Garments, may not be the only design that can be worn, or necessarily the correct design. We intend to view this subject with an open mindset and let you the reader see into this subject without discriminating and seeing some of the history of other cultures.
So should we be following the traditions of the Rabbi’s? Should we be learning on how to be become a Good Jew? And most importantly, should we be following the Judaic teachings, that so many sacred name organizations follow? While Judaism, like Christianity, has some truths to it, we will find one doctrine that Judaism teaches, which should alarm any true believer of Yahweh. Let’s examine the conversion process that one has to go through in order to be a part of Judaism, and see the major warning sign, that anyone who is attempting to be a true called out one of Yahweh, should be fully aware of and consider when studying the teachings of the Rabbi’s.
CONSIDERING JUDAISM AND IT’S TEACHINGS
The conversion process begins when a person considers the possibility of becoming Jewish. The reasons why people become Jewish are varied. Many are involved in a romantic relationship with someone Jewish and wish to unite the family religiously. Others are on a spiritual search and learn about Judaism through such means as reading, hearing a lecture, attending a Jewish religious ceremony, visiting the land of Israel, and so on. Whatever the motivation, the first step in considering conversion is to explore Judaism. This early exploration might include discussing the subject with friends and family, taking out books and videos on Judaism, going online and studying it, or just thinking about whether conversion is the right choice.
FINDING A RABBI OR TEACHER
If, after the initial consideration, a person wishes to explore conversion more fully, the next step is to find a rabbi. This part of the process can be difficult for several reasons. Obviously, individual rabbis differ. Some devote more time than others to conversion candidates. Some adhere to an ancient tradition of turning away a candidate three times to test the candidate's sincerity. In general, though, rabbis are extremely dedicated people who are both intelligent and religiously sensitive. They are Judaism's gatekeepers. They decide who can enter into Judaism. Given their central importance to a potential convert, it makes sense for most people to visit several rabbis and several synagogues to look for a compatible match.
When people are looking for a rabbi, they check with friends and family for advice, or they contact a local board of rabbis or other Jewish group, the internet, or the local telephone directory. Sometimes they also contact the movements directly.
A second problem is that rabbis belong to different groupings or movements. The four major movements are Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, and Reform Judaism. It is important for potential candidates to understand the differences among these movement and choose which movement is right for them. When a person does see a rabbi, the rabbi can authoritatively answer questions about conversion. If the person has already decided to convert, the rabbi will probably ask a series of questions about that decision. Such questions might include some of these:
LEARNING JUDAISM
If a decision has been made to study Judaism, and a rabbi has agreed to oversee that studying, a person might not yet be fully sure that a conversion is right, but the initial steps of exploration will continue. Even those who don't ultimately convert generally find that studying Judaism is both interesting and helpful in their making a final decision about conversion. Converts study Judaism in a variety of ways. Some work directly with a rabbi, meeting regularly and fulfilling specific study assignments. Others attend formal Introduction to Judaism or conversion classes, often with their Jewish romantic partner. A typical course of study will include basic Jewish beliefs and religious practices, such as prayer services, the history of the Jewish people, the Jewish home, the Jewish holidays and life cycle, the Holocaust, and Israel, as well as other topics. The study of Hebrew is also included. The period of study varies greatly. In general, the range is from six months to a year, although there are variations. Many Gentiles preparing to marry someone Jewish go through this process early so as to get married in a Jewish ceremony. A marriage between someone born Jewish and someone who becomes Jewish is a Jewish marriage, not an intermarriage. If this is a crucial issue, plan to begin study well before a wedding. Usually during this study period, a rabbi will ask that the person begin practicing Judaism according to the understanding of the movement. This can be a worthwhile time to explore Judaism. For example, even if a person does not ultimately plan to keep kosher (observe Jewish ritual rules about food), it is valuable to explore the rules for keeping kosher during this period of study.
THE RELIGIOUS COURT
The Religious Court, or Bet Din, most often consists of three people, at least one of whom must be a rabbi. The Bet Din officially oversees the formal conversion. Individual rabbis will provide guidance about how the Bet Din works. Because it takes place after learning, one part of the appearance will be to determine the Jewish knowledge of the conversion candidate. There might, for example be a question about the meaning of the Jewish Sabbath or about the Jewish belief in one God. These questions are not meant to trap candidates. Obviously, candidates are nervous during such questioning, but in almost all cases the questions are simply meant to assess the sincerity of the candidate and to make sure the conversion was entered into freely. Often an oath of allegiance to the Jewish people is made.
Pay attention to the two underlined points in the above paragraph:
These two points are somethings that the average person never considers when studying Judaism, or the teachings of the Rabbi’s. I have heard many believers tell me how great a resource we have in the teachings of the Jewish Rabbi’s. Some consider Rabbi Rashi, Maimonides, and Eleazar, as some of the most influential Rabbi’s in the past 1000 years. Many use their interpretation of the Law as their basis of understanding concerning some of the Laws of Yahweh. Now, while it is not my intentions to condemn any Rabbi or teacher of the Law, there is one thing these Rabbi’s and every Rabbi who is Jewish have in common. It is part of their Judaic Religious belief. Their belief in One Creator is accurate, but they have been in opposition to Christianity because they exalt Jesus to God-like status. This is where they have missed the whole concept of Yahshua our Messiah. Before we address this issure, let’s look at their Oath of Alligiance to be Jewish.
OATH OF ALLEGIANCE
The word “Jewish,” it is argued, signifies so many different things to different people that it is meaningless to ask anyone to swear allegiance to what it represents. Does it refer to a religion? A people? An endogamous biological community? A system of values? A common destiny? To what exactly, it is asked, would the takers of such a loyalty oath be declaring their loyalty?
Here, too, of course, we are dealing with larger issues that go far beyond the proposed oath itself. The question of what is “Jewish,” or of who or what is a “Jew,” has been a contentious one for a long time now — so long, we sometimes forget that for an even longer time before that, it was not disputed at all. Until modern times, indeed, although there may have been different ideas about what being a “Jew” or “Jewish” ideally should be, hardly anyone disagreed about what the words meant in practice. A Jew was a member of a Jewish community, and Jewish communities all over the world were clearly defined entities both in their own eyes and in the eyes of non-Jews. Being Jewish meant belonging to a religion and to a people and to a biological community and sharing certain values and having a common destiny. None of these things was thought of as being inconsistent with any of the others.
Israel's character as a "Jewish state" also introduces a religious element to the definition of "Jewish and democratic," since entry into the Jewish people is through conversion. Requiring an oath of allegiance to a Jewish and democratic state may thus present an obstacle when non-Jews seek citizenship. The oath of allegiance, could prevent Righteous Gentiles from receiving Israeli citizenship. Many people in Israel feel a person must not be forced to take an oath of allegiance – even indirectly – to a particular ideological outlook, religion, or nationality as a condition for becoming a citizen. It is enough to pledge allegiance to the state.
TO BE A JEW AND RECOGNIZED AS SUCH, ONE MUST REJECT THE ONE SENT, YAHSHUA MESSIAH
Please notice that to be a Jew in Israel, one must be allied to the religion of the Jewish people. That religion is Judaism. So what is the danger of being Jewish or studying the teachings of Rabbi’s? One of the tenets of being Jewish or to convert to Judaism is that you have to reject Yahshua as the Messiah! Now ask yourself, should we as true believers of Yahweh be studying the writings of Rabbi’s and their teachings, knowing that they reject Yahshua as the Messiah? Can you consider their teachings as inspiration from Yahweh and that they had the Holy Spirit of Yahweh, when interpreting the Law? How could they be considered inspired by Yahweh, if they have rejected the ONE SENT, by Yahweh who brings salvation to mankind? This is one reason as a believer, I have made every attempt to not use any commentaries or writings of any of these teachers in my understanding or interpretations of the Laws of Yahweh, or my explanation concerning them. How could I or any true believer follow someones teachings, when they outright reject Yahshua as the Messiah? This would make them anti-Messiah and me a follower of their belief! We are warned about such teachers!
Isayah 43:27 “Your first father hath sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me.”
I Timayah 1:7 “Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.”
II Timayah 4:3 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”
II Kepha 2:1 “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who craftily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Master/Teacher, that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”
Yeremyah 8:8 “How can we say we are wise and the Law of Yahweh is with us? Behold, surely the deceptive and false pen of the scribes have deceived us; the wise men are ashamed (dried up, no water), they are dismayed, and caught in a trap, for they have rejected the word of Yahweh and what wisdom is in them?
Kepha described the Rabbi’s teachings as bringing in damnable heresies, and bringing swift destruction upon themselves as well as those who follow their teachings. The Prophet Yeremyah says that they have rejected the word of Yahweh and have deceived us with their false pen, their writings and are caught in a trap! So do we believe these words of those who we know were inspired by Yahweh or will we follow, or allow ourselves to be taught by those who reject the word of Yahweh, by rejecting His Son? If they reject Yahshua as Messiah, they reject the Law of Yahweh that foretold of Him, and reject the Law of Yahweh as a whole!
Hosheyah 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall not minister as a priest to me: seeing you have forgotten the Law of your Mighty Judge, I will also forget your children (rabbi’s).”
I Yahchanan 2:22 “Who is a liar but he that denies that Yahshua is the Messiah? He is an adversary of the Messiah, that denies the founder of the family and the founders descendants, called the Sons of Abraham.”
The fleshly Jews today call themselves the children of Abraham, according to the flesh. But they have lost the teachings of Abraham, by following traditions. Those who have the Spirit of Yahweh are spiritual in every sense of the word, true sons of Abraham, who are not children according to the flesh, trying to please the flesh, but are according to the Spirit, trying to please Yahweh! So the builder of the House, which is Yahweh, is greater than the House!
Hebrews 3:1-4 “Therefore, Holy brethren, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Yahshua, the Apostle and High Priest whom we confess. He was faithful to the one who appointed Him, just as Mosheh was faithful all in Yahweh’s House. Yahshua has been found worthy of greater honor than Mosheh, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but Yahweh is the builder of everything.”
Hebrews 11:10 “For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is Yahweh.”
YAHSHUA MESSIAH THE FIRST HOUSE OF YAHWEH, A HOUSE BUILT WITHOUT HANDS
Yahweh built the first House of Yahweh, called Yahshua Messiah. This House once established, was set as a pattern for us on how to build our House of Yahweh. It is not a physical building, but a House built without hands. In order to build it, we need to have righteous teachings, not teachings from those who reject the plans. Think about this, as you consider this study and the next time you pick up a Commentary from a Rabbi!
Isayah 2:2 “And it shall come to pass in the last 319 days 3117, [that] the mountain 2022 of the LORD'S 3068 house 1004 shall be established 3559 in the top 7218 of the mountains 2022, and shall be exalted 5375 above the hills 1389; and all nations 1471 shall flow 5102 unto it.”
The word last is word #319 and means: after part, end; latter part, extreme part; end, issue, event; latter time (prophetic for future time); posterity; last, hindermost
The word days is word #3117 and means: day, time, year.
The word mountain is word #2022 and means: hill, mountain, hill country, mount; the holy mountain of Yahweh; a mountain tract of country.
The word Lord’s is word #3068 and means: Yahweh
The word house is word #1004 and means: house, dwelling habitation; house as containing a family; household, family; those belonging to the same household; family of descendants, descendants as organized body. From #1129 and means: rebuild, establish, to build a house (ie. establish a family).
The word established is word #3559 and means: to be set up, be established, be fixed; to be firmly established; to constitute, appoint; to be prepared, to be founded.
The word top is word #7218 and means: head, top, summit, upper part, chief, total, sum, height, front, beginning; chief, head (of man, city, nation, place, family, priest); chief, choicest, best.
The word exalted is word #5375 and means: to lift, bear up, carry, take; to be taken away, be carried off, be swept away;
The word hills is word #1389 and means: hill (lower than a mountain); as a place of illicit worship.
The word nations is word #1471 and means: nation, a people; usually of non-Hebrew people; of descendants of Abraham; a confluence of men, body corpus.
The word flow is word #5102 and means: to shine, beam, light, burn; to shine; to give light, to be glad, rejoice.
In Micahyah 4:1 the word people is used in place of nations, as mentioned in Isayah 2:2. This word people is word #5971 and means: people; members of ones people; countrymen, kindred, relatives; the tribes of Israyl.
So we can see that Isayah 2:2 has the meaning:
“And it shall come to pass in latter part of days, that the Holy mountain of Yahweh’s House, those belonging to the same family, descendants as an organized body, shall be established, set up, constituted, to be founded in the beginning, by head of man, chief priest, of the Holy Mountain of Yahweh, and shall be lifted up, bear up, to be taken away, above the place of illicit worship, and all people of non-Hebrew and descendants of Abraham; a confluence of men, the tribes of Israel, shall shine, burn, to give light, be glad, and rejoice unto it.”
Yahshua Messiah is the light unto the world. He became the first House built without hands. He was an example unto us and because He was the first perfected of Yahweh, He became the Head over mankind. He also became the High Priest over the House of Yahweh. He is our salvation! No one will ever take His position, nor will Yahweh allow anyone to take this authority. He is the greatest teacher of the Torah! He was not God in the Flesh! This is why Judaism has stumbled for so long! If they had stood in Yahweh’s counsel, they would have understood the ONE SENT for salvation. They would have understood that at His first coming, He was not here to rule in the flesh, establishing a fleshly Kingdom. He came to establish a spiritual Kingdom, consisting of spiritual brothers and sisters. Why would Yahweh have the need to send His Son to fight a fleshly Kingdom and war against it? Mankind does that quite well on their own. Yahweh could just wipe us all out and start over again, if He wanted to! He sent Yahshua Messiah to show mankind that it is possible to achieve perfection in the flesh, through His Laws, and prove that we can withstand evil. Yahshua only had the Laws to guide Him. He wasn’t saved by grace or by himself. He kept the Laws so that through the Laws, we could understand the difference between righteousness and evil. For anyone to believe otherwise, they should stop reading this article because it will not benefit them, if they can’t get this simple instruction!
JUDAISM’S VIEW OF YAHSHUA MESSIAH
The following information was taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism%27s_view_of_Jesus
Jews have traditionally seen Jesus as one of a number of false messiahs who have appeared throughout history. Jesus is viewed as having been the most influential, and consequently the most damaging, of all false messiahs. However, since the general Jewish belief is that the Messiah has not yet come and that the Messianic Age is not yet present, the total rejection of Jesus as either messiah or deity in Judaism has never been a central issue for Judaism. At the heart of Judaism are the Torah, its commandments, the Tanakh, and ethical monotheism such as in the Shema — all of which predated Jesus. (Editors note: If they understood who Yahshua was, they would realize that the Torah wrote about Him, thereby not predating Him. Even Abraham understood the need for Messiah)
Judaism has never accepted any of the claimed fulfilments of prophecy that Christianity attributes to Jesus. Judaism also forbids the worship of a person as a form of idolatry, since the central belief of Judaism is the absolute unity and singularity of God.
Jewish eschatology holds that the coming of the Messiah will be associated with a specific series of events that have not yet occurred, including the return of Jews to their homeland and the rebuilding of The Temple, a Messianic Age of peace and understanding during which "the knowledge of God" fills the earth, and since Judaism holds that none of these events occurred during the lifetime of Jesus (nor have they occurred afterwards), he is not a candidate for messiah.
Fundamentally, Judaism believes that God, as the creator of time, space, energy and matter, is beyond them, and cannot be born or die, or literally have a son. Judaism teaches that it is heretical for any man to claim to be God, part of God, or the literal son of God. The Jerusalem Talmud (Ta'anit 2:1) states explicitly: "if a man claims to be God, he is a liar."
Please notice the following points about Judaism’s view of Yahshua the Messiah, that has them not believing that Yahshua is the True Messiah.
Now these points should be addressed. First we know that Yahshua is not a false messiah, as He fulfilled the Laws concerning what the messiah would do and be. Second, Yahshua never condemned the Law, torah and the fact that Yahweh is One! Lastly, Yahshua said that He didn’t come in His Name and never wanted worship! So we can see that Judaism’s slant against Yahshua is based on Christian teachings or Christianities view of the Messiah! However, in these last days, they still reject the true teachings of Yahshua Messiah, that is given to them by many of the true believers.
TRUE BELIEVERS VIEW OF YAHSHUA MESSIAH
Here is our belief system concerning Yahshua Messiah:
So why is it that Judaism, would condemn the true believers of Yahweh? Well, maybe we need to present them with the truth, so that they can repent of their religion, which like most religion is built upon man made traditions, and follow the truth! As you read above, they are still thinking in the flesh! They are looking for a physical building, (Temple) built with hands, looking to return to a homeland that is not here on earth, but above, and looking for peace and understanding, yet rejecting the one who taught these principles. Trying to accomplish this, while they are at constant war with their neighbors, who may be their brothers. They also cannot understand the principle that Yahweh is building a family, and that we are His Sons! Now I am not condemning them, only pointing out that those who think in the flesh, can only understand the things of the flesh. Those who think in the Spirit, will understand the things from on high given by the Spirit of Yahweh. We must remember that Judaism rejects Yahshua Messiah. It will be our job to teach them who the real Yahshua Messiah was and is! As we put these Laws together for the Tribes of Israel, the real lost tribes is those of Judah, who are called Jews, and it is my prayer that they will come to understanding of Yahweh’s true revealing of His Laws. And it is my prayer that they will accept the true Messiah, Yahshua, who brings salvation to mankind.
There are some who will find this teaching on the Holy Garments offensive because they have been taught to follow a certain way for most of their life. Or maybe they will defend their Rabbi, as the great teacher, and will reject the truth of Yahweh. I cannot make anyone understand Yahweh’s truth, only preach what Yahweh inspires me to write as Yahshua reveals the understanding to me, and I relay it to you, the reader. I can only say that if you can prove it wrong, then correct it and follow truth! If this helps you study, then Praise Yahweh. Whether you prove it right or wrong, as long as it gets you off your rear end and study, then I have accomplished something worth mentioning! That is what we are all required to do. I am not an expert on the Hebrew, Greek, or even the English language. But I do have a sincere desire to follow Yahweh’s Laws, and will attempt to only write what Yahweh reveals to me to be Truth! I know that I have been called out by Yahweh to do the work of a minister, and I will continue to do it. Don’t follow me, follow the Greatest Teacher in the World, Yahshua Messiah!
Many Rabbi’s have attempted to bring understanding on what they see as the correct interpretation of Numbers 15:38 and Deuteronomy 22:12, concerning the Holy Garments. There are millions of followers who wear the Tallit as described in the above mentioned articles describing the Tallit’s history. So are these millions of devoted worshippers wrong? No! It is not the editors intention to condemn anyone’s belief system or their traditions. I will do my best to explain according to the Law and the Prophets as to what this Garment with fringes on the borders is, and the purpose for the true believers wearing of it. There have been many books written about it, and most take the teachings, or customs from the East, (Rabbinical/Judaic teachings) in their approach to it’s understanding. We will think outside the box, and stay away from the teachings of men, who we have proved were not inspired by Yahweh’s Holy Spirit, and let the scriptures interpret the scriptures! May Yahweh bless your understanding of this Law of Yahweh.
In my 20+ years of wearing the Tallit, I followed the teachings as taught to me by a Rabbi, who I believed to have the understanding of being inspired by Yahweh. It wasn’t until I read other writings and the origins of the Tallit’s Jewish tradition, that I became aware that the Rabbi/Teacher I had followed, did not reveal to me any new understanding, or inspiration, from the Law of Yahweh. But instead, followed the traditions of the Jewish Rabbi’s from the East! We are warned about such practices as foretold by the prophet Isayah.
Isayah 2:6 “You, O Yahweh, have forsaken Your people, the house of Yaaqob, because they are filled with customs from the east, they are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they are pleased in the children of strangers.”
When this was written in the land called Israel, the east would have been in a land other than Israel. So let us see what Isayah was speaking about. Let’s examine the Philistines religious beliefs and the religions of the East.
THE EASTERN RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS, CUSTOMS FROM THE EAST
Dagon was the principal deity of the Philistines, whose ancestors migrated to Palestinian shores from Crete. He was the god of fertility and crops. Dagon also figured prominently in the Philistine concepts of death and the afterlife. In addition to his role in the religion of the Philistines, Dagon was worshipped in the more general society of Canaanite peoples.
Some years after the arrival of the Minoan forefathers of the Philistines, the immigrants adopted elements of Canaanite religion. Eventually the primary religious focus shifted. The worship of the Great Mother, the original religion of the Philistines, was traded for the paying of homage to the Canaanite deity, Dagon.
Within the Canaanite pantheon, Dagon seems to have been second only to El in power. He was one of four sons born to Anu. Dagon was also the father of Baal. Among the Canaanites, Baal eventually assumed the position of god of fertility, which Dagon had previously occupied. Dagon was sometimes associated with the half fish female deity Derceto (which may account for the theory of Dagon being portrayed as half fish). Little else is known of Dagon's place in the Canaanite pantheon, but his role in Philistine religion as primary deity is quite evident. It is known, however, that the Canaanites imported Dagon from Babylonia.
We can see that the Philistines/Canaanites worshiped Dagon, who was the father of Baal and second only to El. What is interesting to see is that the Canaanites imported Dagon from Babylon! Let’s examine the Babylonians in their beliefs! Babylon is located East of Israel.
Babylonian mythology is a set of stories depicting the activities of Babylonian deities, heroes, and mythological creatures. These stories served many social, political, ceremonial purposes, and at times tried to explain natural phenomena. Babylonian mythology and religion was largely centered around civilization.
Babylonian mythology was greatly influenced by their Sumerian counterparts, and was written on clay tablets inscribed with the cuneiform script derived from Sumerian cuneiform. The myths were usually either written in Sumerian or Akkadian. Some Babylonian texts were even translations into Akkadian from the Sumerian language of earlier texts, though the names of some deities were changed in Babylonian texts. Many of the stories of the Tanakh, are believed to have been based on, influenced by, or inspired by the legendary mythological past of the Near East.
So we see that Babylonian religion was greatly influenced by their Sumerian counterparts. Let’s examine Sumerian beliefs.
The Sumerians originally practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic deities representing cosmic and terrestrial forces in their world. During the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE, Sumerian deities became more anthrocentric and were "...nature gods transformed into city gods." Gods like Enki and Inanna were viewed as having been assigned their rank, power and knowledge from An, the heaven deity, or Enlil, head of the Sumerian pantheon.
This cosmological shift may have been caused by the growing influence of the neighboring Akkadian religion, or as a result of increased warfare between the Sumerian city-states; the assignment of certain powers to deities may have mirrored the appointment of the Lugals, who were given power and authority by the city-state and its priesthood.
Until the advent of the Lugals, Sumerian city states were under a virtually complete theocratic government controlled by independent groups of En, or high priest. Priests were responsible for continuing the cultural and religious traditions of their city-state, and were viewed as mediums between humans and the cosmic and terrestrial forces. The priesthood resided full-time in temple complexes, and administered to matters of state including the large irrigation processes necessary for the civilization’s survival.
So we can see that the Babylonian and Sumerian religions, had established Priesthoods. The Priests were responsible for the the religious traditions transferred to the people in each city/state. Reading from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 10 page 285 we find the following information concerning the Babylonian/Sumerians Priestly Garments:
“The priests clothing and the perfection of their persons. Though the priests shown in the early cylinder seals wear dresses practically identical a fringed cloak reaching to the feet leaving the right arm uncovered and therefore free with bare feet and generally shaven head there seems to be no doubt that distinctive clothing was worn. Thus the British Museum letter K 626 RF Harper Assyrian and Babylonian Letters Chicago 1910 no 24 describes the maSmaSu as wearing a red robe and a mitre of the same colour Behrens Assyrisch babylonische Brief e kultischen Inhalts Details as to priestly clothing are meagre but apparently the right garments had to be used or the ceremony would be a failure.”
Another bit of information concerning Greek/Dorian dress, from this same Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 7, page 233 we find:
“xii Greek Costume All articles of Greek costume belong either to the class of kv& na Ta more or less close fitting sewn garments or of Trepi SXij uara loose pieces of stuff draped round the body in various ways and fastened with pins or brooches. For the former class the generic name is xirkv a word of Semitic origin which denotes the Eastern origin of the garment for the latter we find in Homer and early poetry jre7rXos in later times Iixb Ttov. The 7r rXos also called lavbs and cj S pos in Homer was the sole indispensable article of dress in early Greece and as it was always retained as such by the women in Dorian states is often called the Doric dress t0j s Atopts. It was a square piece of woollen stuff about a foot longer than the height of the wearer and equal in breadth to twice the span of the arms measured from wrist to wrist.” (sorry the greek letters didn’t print correctly)
Doesn’t this sound very similiar to the Tallit Gadol, worn by the Jews and Messianic Churches today? They wear a rectangular garment over their clothes when praying, on Sabbath, and at Religous Festivals. The Jews Tallit Gadol was a garment made of wool, silk, cotton, or polyester. Some Messianic Churches only use linen, but they all are wearing something that is not described in scripture, but can be found in many other nations religions! In fact, the above article states that these garments are of Eastern origin, just as the Prophet Isayah condemned the children of Israel for following. Continuing reading from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 7, page 234:
“Thucydides i 6 tells us that in his own time the linen chiton of Ionia had again been discarded in favour of the Doric dress and the monuments show that after the Persian wars a reaction against Orientalism showed itself in a return to simpler fashions. The long linen chiton which had been worn by men as well as women was now only retained by the male sex on religious and festival occasions a short chiton was however worn at work or in active exercise Greek Art fig 3 and often fastened on the left shoulder. IV Etruscan Costume: The female dress of the Etruscans did not differ in any important respect from that of the Greeks: it consisted of the chiton and himation, which was in earlier times usually worn as a shawl, not after the fashion of the Doric.”
As we read earlier, the Rabbi’s disagree on whether women can wear the Tallit. We can see that the Greeks had the same discussions and they, like some Rabbi’s, forbid the women to wear certain religious garments. Can you see the influence of the nations on the Hebrew’s thought process concerning Yahweh’s Laws? That is why we must follow Yahweh and understand the meanings of what He is revealing to us in His Laws. Reading further concerning the Romans customs, on page 235 we find:
“The tunica was precisely like the Greek chiton; that of the senator had two broad stripes of purple latus clavus down the centre that of the knight two narrow stripes angustus clavus. A woollen undergarment subucula was often worn by men; the women's under tunic was of linen indusium. When women gave up the use of the toga they adopted the stola; a long tunic with a border of a darker colour, inslita, along the lower edge the neck also sometimes had a border patagium. The tunic with long sleeves, tunica mankata, was a later fashion. Over this the, ricinium, or rica, a shawl, covering the head and shoulders was worn in early times and retained by certain priestesses as an official costume, but it gave place to the palla the equivalent of the Greek, himation and the dress of the Roman women henceforward differed in no essential particular from that of the Greek.”
We can see the garment that the Roman Priestesses wore is very similiar to the garment that every Jew and Messianic Church wears today! Could this garment that is worn today be a descendant from these pagan Nations? Isayah preached against the customs of the East and condemned the children of Israel from following the practices of the Eastern Religions and the Nations that were around them. I am not saying that it is pagan to wear a garment over your garments, or to wear anything that is described above. What is being pointed out is that we don’t have any specific details as to how the garment was to be made or worn. It appears that the Jewish garment is very close in detail to the Babylonian/Sumerian religious garment.
The Encyclopedia Judaica gives the following information concerning the Tallit:
TALLIT (Heb. TyZt, pl. tallitot; Yid. tales, pl. talesim), prayer shawl. Originally the word meant "gown" or "cloak." This was a rectangular mantle that looked like a blanket and was worn by men in ancient times. At the four corners of the tallit tassels were attached in fulfillment of the biblical commandment of zizit (Num. 15:38–41). The tallit was usually made either of wool or of linen (Men. 39b) and probably resembled the abbayah ("blanket") still worn by Bedouin for protection against the weather. The tallit made of finer quality was similar to the Roman pallium and was worn mostly by the wealthy and by distinguished rabbis and scholars (BB 98a). The length of the mantle was to be a handbreadth shorter than that of the garment under it (BB 57b). After the exile of the Jews from Erez Israel and their dispersion, they came to adopt the fashions of their gentile neighbors more readily. The tallit was discarded as a daily habit and it became a religious garment for prayer; hence its later meaning of prayer shawl. The tallit is usually white and made either of wool, cotton, or silk, although Maimonides and Alfasi objected to the use of the latter. Strictly observant Jews prefer tallitot made of coarse half-bleached lamb's wool. In remembrance of the blue thread of the zizit (see tekhelet), most tallitot have several blue stripes woven into the white material (see Zohar, Num. 227a). Until recently, however, they only had black stripes. The minimum size of a tallit is that which would suffice to clothe a small child able to walk (Sh. Ar., OH 16:1).
Reading from, http://www.judaic.com/judaism/tallit-historical.html we find the following:
“There is much confusion among the masses as to the origins of the tallit. The actual four-cornered garment began with no relevance whatsoever to Jewish practice. Beginning when Moses received the Torah on Mount Sinai, all of Israel were commanded to place tzitzit on the corners of their four-cornered garments. (Numbers 15:37-41 and Commandment 376 out of 613 in the Sefer HaChinuch ISBN 0-87306-605-7). The purpose of such a commandment, as given by the verses in Numbers, is so that the people of Israel should glance at the strings and remember all of the commandments of God.
Most people at the time (both Jews as well as non-Jews) wore clothing that bears little resemblance to modern apparel. Most clothing consisted of a sheet-like item wrapped around the body following the local customs of the time. This can perhaps be compared to the "'abayah," or blanket, worn by the Bedouins for protection from sun and rain, or the stola/toga of ancient Greece and Rome. As sheets, these garments had four corners and were thus subsequently (from Sinai, onwards) required to possess these tzitzis. As recorded in the Talmud, these were sometimes worn partly doubled, and sometimes with the ends thrown over the shoulders (Shabbos 147a; Menachos 41a).
As modern day dawned and people began wearing the apparel with which we are all quite familiar (shirts and slacks, etc.), the four-cornered sheet-like cloth fell out of style and practicality, and to this end, the Biblical commandment to attach tzitzis to one's garments effectively became obsolete. However, in a demonstration of love for the Almighty and their desire to keep His commandments, the Rabbis ordained that Jews should purposely wear four-cornered garments to necessitate the attachment of the tzitzis.”
Reading from, http://www.tallit-shop.com/tallit-tefillin-blog/tallis/history-of-yemenite-tallith/ we find the following:
In our day, the use of the tallit is largely confined to times of prayer.
Jewish sources indicate that the tallit was originally made of wool and that the person wearing it might treat it as an ordinary garment for various purposes – bundling up his wares in it or using it to cover himself or the bed he was lying on. Based on a responsum written by the Rambam it appears that the custom during his time was to wear a tallit throughout the day.
Meanwhile Rabbi Petachia of Regensburg, who visited the East in the 12th century, reveals that the Jews of Baghdad “go about in shawls and wrapped up in a tallit of wool, with tzitzits.” According to Dr. Aaron Gimani of Bar-Ilan University, the restriction of the tallit to the morning prayers and the development of the tallit katan evolved as Jews began to adopt more mainstream social mores.
Notice that the tallit was similiar to the Roman pallium. Also we find in these articles about the Tallit, the Jewish people tended to adopt the fashions of their gentile neighbors. We see that Rabbi Petachia, who visited the EAST in the 12th century, saw Jews of Baghdad, wearing the Tallit, which is like the one they wear today.
This has been a habit of most people, especially our Jewish brethren, who were conquered and dispersed into the nations around them. We tend to adapt many things from the culture around us. In today’s world everyone is influenced by the fashions, culture, and influence of mainstream medias programming on our intellect and our choice of fashion. It was no different to our Jewish brethren in the past, as they were assimilated into the cultures around them and influenced by them, they imitated the customs of these nations, which included their fashions. The wearing of the Tallit garment today, is one that was ordained and designed by the Jewish Rabbi’s, not Yahweh, so we should make every effort to find out what Yahweh defines in His Law!
WHAT DID IT MEAN TO WEAR THE FRINGES IN ANCIENT CULTURE
In an article by Jacob Milgrom in BAR magazine dated May/June 1983 we find the following information concerning the tassels and hem of the garment during ancient times:
To understand the significance of the tassel, we must first understand the significance of the hem. The hem of an ancient Near Eastern garment was not simply a fold sewed to prevent the threads of the cloth from unraveling. The hem of the outer garment or robe made an important social statement. It was usually the most ornate part of the garment. And the more important the individual, the more elaborate and the more ornate was the embroidery on the hem of his or her outer robe. The tassel must be understood as an extension of such a hem.
Extra-Biblical texts teach us that the ornate hem was considered a symbolic extension of the owner himself and more specifically of his rank and authority.
In Mesopotamia we find early Akkadian texts (for example, in 18th-century Mari) which frequently use the phrase “to cut off the hem” (sisikta bataqu). When the hem is cut off, a part of the person’s personality is removed. In exorcising an evil spirit, the exorcist cuts off the hem of the garment worn by the person invaded by the evil spirit; the exorcist then pronounces an incantation over his patient’s detached hem. In a Mesopotamian divorce, the husband effects the divorce by cutting off the hem of his wife’s robe.
The significance of the hem and of its being cut off is reflected in a famous Biblical episode. When the young and future king, David, fled from the jealous wrath of King Shaul, Shaul pursued David into the Judean wilderness near the Dead Sea. Weary from his pursuit, Shaul went into one of the caves near the spring at Ein Gedi to relieve himself, unaware that David and his men were hiding in that very cave. David’s men urged him to kill the unsuspecting Shaul. Instead, David cut the hem of Shaul’s cloak to prove that he could easily have killed Shaul if he had wanted to, but that he would not harm the Lord’s anointed. The passage has a deeper significance, however—in some ways the opposite significance. The hem that David cut off was an extension of Saul’s person and authority. David did in fact harm Yahweh’s anointed; that is why David immediately felt remorse for what he had done: “Afterward David reproached himself for having cut off the hem of Shaul’s cloak”
I Samuel 24:6 “And he said unto his men, Yahweh forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, Yahweh’s anointed, to stretch forth my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of Yahweh.”
According to the New English Bible translation, David’s “conscience smote him.”
I Samuel 24:5 “And it came to pass afterward, that David’s heart smote him, because he had cut off Shaul’s skirt.”
The word smote is #5221 and means: to strike, to smitten, beat, hit.
The word skirt is #3671 and means: wing, corner, border. edge, extremity.
We can see that David had his heart smitten. Anyone who has experienced fear or excitement, can testify of the adrenalin that is released when someone gets excited. This is what David felt and with remorse because he knew what he had done was irreversible, but he also knew that he had symbolically cut out King Shaul’s kingdom from him.
Although protesting that he had not lifted a finger or a hand against Yahweh’s anointed (1 Samuel 24:10), David had in fact committed a symbolic act—cutting off Shaul’s hem—of enormous significance. This significance was not lost on King Shaul; he understood full well:
I Samuyl 24:20 “Now I know that you will become king.”
The legal significance of the hem is frequently demonstrated in the famous archive of cuneiform tablets found at Mari in present-day Syria near the border of Iraq. In Mari, a professional prophet or diviner would enclose with his report to the king a lock of his hair and a piece of his hem. Both the hair and the hem served to identify the prophet, but more important, the piece of hem served to guarantee that the prediction was true. Sometimes the hem was impressed on the clay tablet as a kind of signature. Today, a person who cannot write sometimes “signs his name” by impressing his fingerprints on the document; in ancient Mesopotamia, a member of the upper class sometimes “signed his name” by impressing part of his hem on a clay tablet to insure its authenticity.
We now have a short history of the tallit, tzitzit, tassels or fringes, and hems/borders of the garments of ancient civilized nations and their design. We can see that many nations and their Priests had holy garments, and their design appears to be very close to the tallit that the Jewish people wear today. We have seen that the Jewish people absorbed the culture around them. So is this a coincidence only, or is there scriptural proof to show that the Tallit worn today is not the same as the one described in the Law of Yahweh. We will examine the words and scriptures more in detail to find out. We will also search one more group of people, of the Hebrew nation, that has been lost to the Jewish culture and history of the people in the Middle East.
THE DISPERSED TRIBES OF ISRAEL
Before we get into our study of the words in the Law of the Holy Garments, we need to examine the dispersed, or as some refer to as the lost tribes of Israel, who have been forgotten in the pages of our Hebraic history. We need to remember that those who today are called Jews, would be from the tribe of Yahdah or Kingdom of Yahdah, which only consisted of two tribes, Yahdah and Benyamin. That is only two tribes. The children of Israel had 12 tribes.
Genesis 49:28 “All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this [is it] that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.”
History shows us that after the death of King Solomon, the Kingdom was split into two Kingdoms. The Southern Kingdom had two tribes, and the Northern Kingdom had 10 tribes. Reading from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes we find the following information:
The Kingdom of Israel (or Northern Kingdom) was one of the successor states to the older United Monarchy (also called the Kingdom of Israel), which came into existence in about the 930s BC after the northern Tribes of Israel rejected Solomon's son Rehoboam as their king. Nine landed tribes formed the Northern Kingdom: the tribes of Reuben, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim and Manasseh. In addition, some members of Tribe of Levi, who had no land allocation, were found in the Northern Kingdom. The Tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to Rehoboam, and formed the Kingdom of Judah (or Southern Kingdom). Members of Levi and the remnant of Simeon were also found in the Southern Kingdom.
The Hebrew Bible does not use the phrase "Ten Lost Tribes", leading some to question the actual number of tribes involved. However, 1 Kings 11:31 states that Yahweh will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and give ten tribes to Jeroboam:
I Kings 11:31 “And he said to Jeroboam, Take you ten pieces: for thus saith Yahweh, the Mighty Judge of Israel, Behold, I will remove the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to you.”
I Kings 11:35 “But I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and will give it unto you, even ten tribes.”
However, it is not clear which tribes should be counted as dispersed. Dispersed tribes are those that formed the northern Kingdom of Israel after the dissolution of the united Kingdom of Israel in c. 930 BC. The tribes of Reuben, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim, and Manasseh were parts of the northern kingdom, a total of nine.
It has sometimes been said that the Tribe of Simeon was a part of the northern Kingdom of Israel and was therefore part of the "Ten Lost Tribes." However, the Tribe of Simeon was never located in the Northern Kingdom, but was located entirely within the land of Judah. (Joshua 19:1) In addition, the territory of the tribe of Benjamin was part of the kingdom of Judah at the time of the Babylonian Exile and after, and the tribe of Levi continued to serve in the Second Temple in Yerusalem after the Exile, making four tribes (Judah, Simeon, Benjamin and Levi) who were not actually "dispersed".
The concept of the "Ten Lost Tribes" originally began in a religious context, based on Biblical sources, not as an ethnological idea. Some scientists have researched the topic, and at various times some have made claims of empirical evidence of the Ten Lost Tribes. However, religious and scriptural sources remain the main sources of the belief that the Ten Lost Tribes have some continuing, though hidden, identity somewhere.
There are numerous references in Biblical writings. In Yechetzqyah 37:16-17, the prophet is told to write on one stick (an ancient reference to scrolls) (quoted here in part) "For Yahdah..." and on the other (quoted here in part) , "For Yahseph..." (the main Lost Tribe). The prophet is then told that these two groups shall be someday reunited.
Yechetzqyah 37:16,17 “Moreover, thou son of man, take you one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Yahseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in your hand.”
17th to 20th Century Theories of the Dispersed Tribes
The Portuguese traveller Antonio de Montezinos brought back reports that some of the Lost Tribes were living among the Native Americans of the Andes in South America. In response to this, Manasseh ben Israel, a noted rabbi of Amsterdam, wrote on December 23, 1649:
“... I think that the Ten Tribes live not only there ... but also in other lands scattered everywhere; these never did come back to the Second Temple and they keep till this day still the Jewish Religion …”
Antonio de Montezinos was a Portuguese traveler and a Marrano Sephardic Jew who in 1644 persuaded Menasseh Ben Israel, a rabbi of Amsterdam, that he had found one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel living in the jungles of the "Quito Province" (that is, the Pichincha Province) of Ecuador. This supposed discovery gave a new impulse to Menasseh's Messianic hopes. Menasseh wrote a book about this narrative, The Hope of Israel. In it Menasseh argued, and for the first time tried to give scholarly support in European thought and printing to the theory that the native inhabitants of America at the time of the European discovery were actually descendants of the [lost] Ten Tribes of Israel. The book was originally written in Hebrew (Mikveh Israel) or in Latin (Spes Israelis) around 1648, but its publication in English in 1650 in London caused great controversy and polemics in England. The novel theory was never proven, but it held European imagination for a long time in the centuries to come and had its followers later in America too.
Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – November 20, 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh Ben Israel (also, Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y), was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, scholar, writer, diplomat, printer and publisher, founder of the first Hebrew printing press (named Emeth Meerets Titsma`h) in Amsterdam in 1626.
In 1655, Manasseh ben Israel petitioned Oliver Cromwell to allow the Jews to return to England. (Since the Edict of Expulsion in 1290, Jews had been prohibited by law from living in England.) One of the reasons for Cromwell's alleged interest in the return of the Jews to England was the abundance at the time of theories relating to the end of the world. Many of these ideas were fixed upon the year 1666 and the Fifth Monarchy Men who were looking for the return of Jesus as the Messiah who would establish a final kingdom to rule the physical world for a thousand years. They supported Cromwell's Republic in the expectation that it was a preparation for the fifth monarchy - that is, the monarchy that should succeed the Babylonia, the Persian, the Greek, and Roman world empires.
Mixed in with all of this was a background of general belief that the Lost Ten Tribes did not represent ethnic Jews who partially formed the ancient Kingdom of Judah, but tribes who maintained a separate capital at Samaria. Some have attempted to dismiss this complicated saga by stating that it is nothing but Supersessionism. However, the ideas behind these various competing theories are far more complicated, especially when Sabbatai Zevi, the "messiah" claimant and his supporters postulated that he represented groups in addition to those identified as being Jews. However, Zevi lost his credibility to all but the Donmeh when he converted to Islam and became an apostate to Judaism in 1666.
During the latter half of the 18th century, variations on this same theory were advocated by some who believed that the British Empire of nations was a manifestation of ancient prophecies recorded in the Book of Genesis predating both the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah.
Others believe that the Lost Tribes simply merged with the local population. For instance, the New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia states "In historic fact, some members of the Ten Tribes remained in Palestine, where apart from the Samaritans some of their descendants long preserved their identity among the Jewish population, others were assimilated, while others were presumably absorbed by the last Judean exiles who in 597-586 BC were deported to Assyria...Unlike the Judeans of the southern Kingdom, who survived a similar fate 135 years later, they soon assimilated.
The Nasranis of Kerala, India, are of Hebrew or Israelite heritage but not much is known of their past, making it difficult to be certain that they are also descended from the 'Lost Tribes'. (Ref. Dr. Asahel Grant's 'The Nestorians or the Lost Tribes of Israel' for more about the Nazarenes and Nestorians). However, recent DNA analysis results suggest significant Middle Eastern / Israelite components among the Nasranis, also known as Mar Thoma (St. Thomas) Syrian (Syriac) Christians, of Kerala (ancient Malabar). Dr. Avigdor Shachan, in his book 'In the Footsteps of the Lost Ten Tribes'(translated from the Hebrew, Devora Publishing, Jeusalem, New York) refers to this ancient Christian community and their faith as follows: "One could label the Christianity which Thomas introduced in Taxila, Malabar and other Israelite communities in central Asia and along the eastern and western coasts of India, "Israelite Christianity", an offshoot of the Jewish religion, for the language, culture, ritual and spirit that prevailed in this ancient church until the western missionaries arrived was a hybrid of Aramaic-Syrian-Eretz Israel and Eastern..." Another theory is that the Middle Eastern DNA found is from travelling Assyrian Nestorian missionaries who were undoubtedly responsible for bringing Christianity to Kerala.
BENE ISRAEL OF SOUTH ASIA
The Bene Israel (Hebrew: "Sons of Israel") are a group of Jews who live in various Indian cities, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad. Prior to their waves of emigration to Israel and still to this day, the Bene Israel form the largest sector of the subcontinent's Jewish population, and constitute the bulk of those sometimes referred to as Pakistani Jews. The native language of the Bene Israel is Judæo-Marathi, a form of Marathi. Most Bene Israel have now emigrated to Israel. Some researchers believe that the Bene Israel are descended from the Ten Tribes.
In 2010, Amir Mizroch in the Jerusalem Post referred to the theory that even Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be descending from the lost tribe of Efraim. Shahnaz Ali, a senior research fellow at the Indian National Institute of Immunohaematology in Mumbai, has started studying the blood samples that she collected from Afridi Pathans in Malihabad, in the Lucknow district in Uttar Pradesh, India, to check their putative Israelite origin.
JAPANESE
Some writers have speculated that the Japanese people themselves may be direct descendants of part of the Ten Lost Tribes. There are some parallels between Japanese and Israelite rituals, culture, traditions, and language, which provide some evidence for this possibility. An article that has been widely circulated and published, entitled "Mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes: Japan" by Arimasa Kubo (a Japanese writer living in Japan who studied the Hebrew Bible), concludes that many traditional customs and ceremonies in Japan are very similar to the ones of ancient Israel and that perhaps these rituals came from the religion and customs of the Jews and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who might have come to ancient Japan.
Joseph Eidelberg's "The Biblical Hebrew Origin of the Japanese People" makes a similar case:
Late in his life, Joseph Eidelberg began analyzing ancient traditions, religious ceremonies, historical names, haiku poems, Kana writings and Japanese folk songs, discovering thousands of words with similar pronunciations, sounds and translations between Hebrew and Japanese. These discoveries are history in the making, giving credible new information on the meanings of many unknown Japanese words, numbers, songs and cultural traditions – and this book is the first time that these remarkable similarities are combined into a single consistent theory.
AMERICAN INDIANS
Several explorers, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, claimed to have collected evidence that some of the American Indian tribes might be descended from the Ten Lost Tribes. Several recent books and articles have focused on these theories.
The belief that some American Indians were a Lost tribe of Israel goes back centuries and includes individuals like the 1782 President of the Continental Congress Elias Boudinot and Mordecai Noah, the most influential Jew in the United States in the early 19th Century.
The Book of Mormon, one of the religious texts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), claims that early residents of the Americas included descendents from the tribe of Joseph, and particularly through Manasseh.
Some sources such as Howshua Amariel (who we will discuss later) and various researchers assert that DNA evidence, linguistic research, and other research indicates links between the Cherokee Nation and the Jewish people. At this time we will focus on the Cherokee Indians to see if they are part of the dispersed tribes of the Hebrew people.
DISCOVERY OF THE INDIANS BY EUROPEANS AND THEIR HISTORY
Reading from Mordecai Noah, we find the most interesting and intriguing history of the Indian Nations.
On the discovery of America by Columbus, and the discoveries subsequent to his time, various tribes of Indians or savages were found to inhabit this our continent, whose origin was unknown.
The American Indians when first discovered, were not savages as described in books, movies, and most history books. They were a singular race of men, with enlarged views of life, religion, courage, constancy, humanity, policy, eloquence, love of their families; with a proud and gallant bearing, fierce in war, and, like the ancients, relentless in victory. Their hospitality might be quoted as examples among the most liberal of the present day. These were not wild men -- these were a different class from those found on the Sandwich and Feegee Islands: The red men of America, bearing as they do the strongest marks of Asiatic origin, have for more than 2000 years and divided as they are in upwards of 1300 different nations, been remarkable for their intellectual superiority; their bravery in war, their good faith in peace, and all the simplicity and virtues of their patriarchal fathers, until civilization, as it is called, had rendered them familiar with all the vices which distinguish the present era, without being able to enforce any of the virtues which are the boast of our present enlightened times.
It is, however, in the religious belief and ceremonies of the Indians that I propose showing some of the evidences of their being, as it is believed, the descendants of the dispersed tribes. This opinion is founded --
If I shall be able to satisfy your doubts and curiosity on these points, you will certainly rejoice with me in discovering that the dispersed of the chosen people are not the lost ones -- that the promises held out to them have been thus far realised, and that all the prophecies relative to their future destination will in due time be strictly fulfilled.
It has been the general impression, as before mentioned, that great resemblance existed between some of the religious rites of the Jews, and the peculiar ceremonies of the Indians; and the belief in one great spirit has tended to strengthen the impression; yet this mere resemblance only extended so far as to admit of the belief, that they possibly may have descended from the dispersed tribes, or may have been of Tartar or Malay origin.
It was, however, argued and unsatisfactory suspicion, which, having no tangible evidence, has been rejected, or thrown aside as a mere supposition. All the missionaries and travellers among the Indian tribes since the discovery of America -- Adair, Heckewelder, Charliveux, M'Kenzie, Bartram, Beltrami, Smith, Penn, Mrs. Simon, who has written a very interesting work on this subject, &c., have expressed opinions in favour of their being of Jewish origin -- the difficulty, however, under which they all laboured was simply this; they were familiar with the religious rites, ceremonies, traditions and belief of the Indians, but they were not sufficiently conversant with the Jewish rites and ceremonies, to show the analogy. It is precisely this link in the chain of evidence that I propose to supply.
It has been said that the Indians believing in one great Spirit and Fountain of Life, like the Jews, does not prove their descent from the missing tribes, because in a savage state their very ignorance and superstition lead them to confide in the works of some divine superior being. But savages are apt to be idolaters, and personate the deity by some carved figure or image to whom they pay their adoration and not like the Indians, having a clear and definite idea of one great Ruler of the universe, one great Spirit, whose attributes are as well known to them as to us. But if the continued unerring worship of one Creator like the Jews prove nothing, where did they acquire the same Hebrew name and appellation of that deity? If tradition had not handed down to them the ineffable name as also preserved by the Jews, how did they acquire it in a wilderness where the word of Yahweh was never known?
James Adair, who resided forty years among them, in his work published in 1775, says, "The ancient heathens worshipped a plurality of gods, but these Indians say their devoir to Lo-ak (Light) Ish-ta-hoola-aba, distinctly Hebrew, which means the great supreme beneficent holy Spirit of Fire who resides above.
They are, says Adair, utter strangers to all the gestures practised by the pagans in their religious rites -- they kiss no idols, nor would they kiss their hands in tokens of reverence or willing obedience.
These tribes, says Adair, so far from being Atheists, use the great and dreadful name of Yahweh which describes his divine essence, and by which he manifested himself to Moses! and are firmly persuaded that they now live under the immediate government of the Almighty Ruler. Their appellative for Yahweh is Isto-hoolo, the Hebrew of Esh-Eshys, from Ishto, Great, but they have another appellative, which with them as with us, is the mysterious essential name of Yahweh, which they never mention in common speech, and only when performing their most sacred religious rites, and then they most solemnly divide it in syllables, with intermediate words, so as not to pronounce the ineffable name at once.
Thus, in their sacred dances at their feast of the first fruits, they sing Aleluyah and Mesheha, from the Hebrew of Masheach, Messiah, the anointed one. Yo mesheha." He meshesha," "Wah meshehah," this making the Aleluyah the Mesheha, the Yehovah."
Can we, for a moment, believe that these sacred well known Hebrew words found their way by accident to the wilderness? Or can it be doubled that like the fire of the burning bush which never is extinguished, those words of religious adoration are the sacred relics of tradition, handed down to them from generation to generation? In the same manner, says Adair, they sing on certain other religious celebrations, ailyo ailyo, which is the Hebrew el for God by his attribute of omnipotence. They likewise sing hewah, hewah, He chyra, the "immortal soul." Those words sung at their religious rejoicings are never uttered at any other time, which must have occasioned the loss of their divine hymns. They on some occasions sing Shilu yo -- Shilu he --Shilu wah. The three terminations make up in their other the four lettered divine name in Hebrew. Shilu is evidently Shaleach, Shiloth, the messenger; "the peace maker."
The number of Hebrew words used in their religious services is incredible; thus, in chiding any one for levity during a solemn worship they say, Che hakeet Kana, "you resemble those reproved in Canaan," and to convey the idea of criminality, they say Hackset Canaha, "the sinners of Canaan." They call lightning eloah, and the rumbling of thunder rowah, from the Hebrew ruach, "spirit."
Like the Israelites they divide the year into four seasons, with the same festivals; they calculate by moons and celebrate as the Jews do the berachah halebana, the blessing for the new moon.
The Indians have their prophets and high priests, the same as the Jews had; not hastily selected; but chosen with caution from the most wise and discreet, and they ordain their high priests by anointing, and have a most holy place in their sanctuaries, like the Holy of Holies in the Temple. The Archimagus or High Priest, wears, in resemblance to the ancient breastplate, a white conch-shell ornamented so as to resemble the precious stones on the Urim, and instead of the golden plate worn by the Levite on his forehead, bearing the inscription Kodish Ladonaye, the Indian binds his brows with a wreath of swan's feathers, and wears a tuft of white feathers which he calls Yatira.
The Indians have their ark which they invariably carry with them to battle well guarded. In speaking of the Indian places of refuge, Adair says, "I observed that if a captive taken by the reputed power of the holy things of their ark, should be able to make his escape into one of these towns, or even into the winter house of the Archimagus, he is delivered from the fiery torture, otherwise inevitable. This, when taken in connection with the many other faint images of Mosaic customs, seems to point at the mercy-seat of the sanctuary. It is also worthy of notice, that they never place the ark on the ground. On hilly ground where large stones are plenty, they rest it thereon, but on level prairies, upon short logs, where they also seat themselves. And when we consider, continues Adair, in what a surprising manner the Indians copy after the ceremonial law of the Hebrews, and their strict purity in the war camps; that opae, "the leader" obliges till during the first campaign which they have made with the beloved ark, to stand every day they are not engaged in warfare, from sunrise to sunset, and after a fatiguing day's march and scanty allowance, to drink warm water embittered with rattle-snakeroot very plentifully, in order to purification; that they have also as strong a faith in the power of their ark as ever the Israelites had in theirs, ascribing the success of one party to their stricter adherence to the law, than the other, we have strong reason to conclude them of Hebrew origin. The Indians have an old tradition, that when they left their own native land, they brought with them a sanctified rod by order of an oracle, which they fixed every evening in the ground, and were to remove from place to place on the continent towards the sun rising till it budded in one night's time. I have seen other Indians, says the same writer, who related the same thing. Instead of the miraculous direction to which they limit it, in their western banishment, it appears more likely that they refer to the ancient circumstance of the rod of Aaron, which in order to check the murmur of those who conspired against him, was in his favour made to bud blossoms and yield almonds at one and the same time. It is a well attested fact, and is here corroborated by Adair, that in taking female captives the Indians have often protected them, but never despoiled them of honour.
The statement of Adair, in relation to the ark, is corroborated by several travellers. Major Long, a more recent traveller, in his expedition to the Rocky Mountains, says, in relation to the ark, "It is placed upon a stand, and is never suffered to touch the earth. No person dare open all the coverings. Tradition informs them that curiosity induced three different persons to examine the mysterious shell, who were immediately punished for their profanation by instant blindness." This is the Jewish punishment pronounced for looking on the holy of holies -- even now for looking on the descendants of the high priest who alone have the privilege of blessing the people.
The most sacred feast day uniformly kept by the Jews is the day of Atonement, usually falling in the month of September or early in October. This is deemed in every part of the world a most solemn fast, and great preparations are made for its celebration It is in the nature of expiation of sin, of full confession, penitence and prayer; and is preceded by ablution and preparation of morning prayer for some time.
It is a very sacred fast, which lasts from sunset on one day until the new moon is seen on the succeeding evening. It is not in the nature of a gloomily desponding penance, but rather a day of solemn rejoicing, of hope and confidence, and is respected by those most indifferent to all other festivals throughout the year.
Precisely such a fast, with similar motives, and nearly at the same period of the year, is kept by the Indian natives generally
Adair, after stating the strict manner in which the Indians observe the revolutions of the moon, and describing the feast of the harvest, and the first offerings of the fruits, gives a long account of the preparations in putting their temple in proper order for the great day of atonement, which he fixes at the time when the corn is full eared and ripe, generally in the latter end of September. He then proceeds:
"Now one of the waiters proclaims with a loud voice, for all the warriors and beloved men whom the purity of their law admits, to come and enter the beloved square, and observe the fast. He also exhorts the women and children, with those who have not been initiated in war, to keep apart, according to the law.
"Four centinels are now placed one at each corner of the holy square, to keep out every living creature as impure, except the religious order, and the warriors who are not known to have violated the law of the first fruit-offering, and that of marriage, since the last year's expiation. They observe the fast till the rising of the second sun; and be they ever so hungry in the sacred interval, the healthy warriors deem the duty so awful, and disobedience to inexpressibly vicious, that no temptation would induce them to violate it. They at the same time drink plentifully of a decoction of the button snake root, in order to vomit and cleanse their sinful bodies.
"In the general fast, the children and men of weak constitution, are allowed to eat, as soon as they are certain that the sun has begun to decline from his meridian altitude.
"Now every thing is hushed. Nothing but silence all around, The great beloved man, and his beloved waiter, rising up with a reverend carriage, steady countenance and composed behaviour, go into the beloved place, or holiest, to bring them out the beloved fire. The former takes a piece of dry popular, willow, or white oak, and having cut a hole, but no so deep as to reach through it, he then sharpens another piece, and placing that in the hole, and both between his knees, he drills it briskly for several minutes, till it begins to smoke -- or by rubbing to pieces together for a quarter of an hour, he collects by friction the hidden fire, which they all consider as proceeding from the holy spirit of fire.
"The great beloved man, or high priest, addresses the warriors and women; giving all the particular' positive injunctions and negative precepts they yet retain of the ancient law. He uses very sharp language to the women. He then addresses the whole multitude. He enumerates the crimes they have committed, great and small, and bids them look at the Holy fire which has forgiven them. He presses on his audience, by the great motives of temporal good and the fear of temporal evil, the necessity of a careful observance of the ancient law, assuring them that the holy fire will enable their prophets, the rain makers, to procure them plentiful harvests, and give their war leaders victory over their enemies. He then orders some of the fire to be laid down outside of the holy ground, for all the houses of the various associated towns, which sometimes lay several miles apart."
Mr. Bartram, who visited the southern Indians in 1778, gives an account of the same feast, but in another nation. He says, that the feast of first fruits is the principal festival. This seems to end the old and begin the new ecclesiastical year. It commences when their new crops are arrived to maturity. This is their most solemn celebration."
With respect to the sacrifices, we have had none since the destruction of the temple, but it was customary among the Jews, in the olden times, to sacrifice daily a part of a lamb. This ceremony is strictly observed by the Indians. The hunter when leaving his wigwam for the chase, puts up a prayer, that the great Spirit will aid his endeavours to procure food for his wife and children, and, when he returns with the red deer, whatever may be the cravings of hunger, he allows none to taste until he has cut part of the flesh, which he throws in the fire as a sacrifice, accompanied with prayer. All travellers speak of this practice among the Indians, so clearly Hebrew in its origin.
The bathings, anointings, ablutions, in the coldest weather, are never neglected by the Indians, and, like the Jews of old, they anoint themselves with bear's oil.
The Mosaic prohibition of eating unclean animals, and their enumeration, are known to you all. It would be supposed that, admidst the uncertainty of an Indian life, all kinds of food would be equally acceptable. Not so: for in strict conformity with the Mosaic law, they abstain from eating the blood of any animal, they abominate swine flesh, they do not eat fish without scales, the eel, the turtle or sea cow; and they deem many animals and birds impure. These facts are noticed by all writers, and particularly by Edwards in his History of the West Indies. The latter able historian, in noticing the close analogy between the religious rites of the Jews and Indians, says, "that the striking conformity of the prejudices and customs of the Caribbee Indians, to the practices of the Jews, has not escaped the notice of such historians as Gamella, Du Terte, and others;" and Edwards also states, that the Indians on the Oroonoke, punished their women caught in adultery, by stoning them to death before the assembly of the people.
Among the Mosaical laws is the obligation of one brother to marry his brother's widow, if he dies without issue. Major Long says, "if the deceased has left a brother, he takes the widow to his lodge after a proper interval and considers her as his wife." This is also confirmed by Charleviux.
It would occupy a greater space of time than I can afford, to trace a similitude between all the Indian rites and religious ceremonies, and those of the Jewish nation. In their births, in their separation after the births of their children, in their daily prayers and sacrifices, in their festivals, in their burials, in the employment of mourners, and in their general belief, I see a close analogy and intimate connection, with all the ceremonies and laws which are observed by the Jewish people; making a due allowance for what has been lost, and misunderstood, in the course of upwards of 2000 years.
A general belief exists among most travellers, that the Indians are the descendants of the missing tribes.
Menassah Ben Israel wrote his celebrated treatise, to prove this fact, on the discovery of America.
William Penn, who always acted righteously towards the Indians, and had never suspected that they had descended from the missing tribes, says, in a letter to his friends in England, "I found them with like countenances to the, Hebrew race. I consider these people under a dark night, yet they believe in God and immortality, without the aid of metaphysics. They reckon by moons, they offer their first ripe fruits, they have a kind of feast of tabernacles, they are said to lay their altars with twelve stones, they mourn a year, and observe the Mosaic law with regard to separation."
Emanuel de Moraez, in his history of Brazil, declares that America has been peopled by the Carthagenians and Israelites, and as to the Israelites, he says, nothing is wanting but circumcision, to constitute a perfect resemblance between them and the Brazilians.
The Rev. Mr. Beatty, a very worthy missionary, says, "I have often before hinted, that I have taken great pains to search into the usages and customs of the Indians, in order to see what ground there was for supposing them to be part of the ten tribes, and I must own, to my no small surprise, that a number of their customs appear so much to resemble those of the Jews, that it is a great question with me, whether we can expect to find among the ten tribes wherever they are at this day, all things considered, more of the footsteps of their ancestors than among the different Indian tribes."
Monsieur de Guignes, an old French historian, in speaking of the discoveries made in America, before the time of Columbus, says, "These researches, which of themselves, give us great insight into the origin of the Americans, lead to the determination of the route of the colonies sent to the continent;" and he proceeds to give reasons for his belief, that the greater part of them passed thither "by the most eastern extremities of Asia, where the two continents are only separated by a narrow strait, easy to cross" Beltram, in his discovery of the sources of the Mississippi, after a full and interesting account of the Indian, says, "Different authors have brought them hither from all parts of the world. I was at first induced to join with those who derived them from the Hebrews. It seemed impossible for me to doubt, that by so doing, I should be building on an impregnable foundation." He then proceeds to prove their Asiatic origin by many interesting facts.
The 4th Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, published his travels in America, in 1801" It is curious and pleasing," says he, "in reading the travels of those who have been among these people, to find how their customs comport with the laws of Moses;" and after describing at length their religious rites and ceremonies, his lordship emphatically observes, "It is a sound truth, that the Indians are descended from the ten tribes; and time and investigation will more and more enforce its acknowledgment."
It is, however, in Mexico and Peru, that we must look for the most enlightened and the most wealthy of the Indian race On the representations of Montesini, who travelled in South America, the learned Rabbi Menassah Ben Israel, as I have said before, wrote his famous work La Esperanza de Israel, which he published in Amsterdam, in 1650, endeavouring with great zeal to prove, that the Indians in North and South America were the descendants of the missing tribes; and Cromwell, to whom the work was dedicated, was greatly interested in the evidences produced on that occasion. Montesini, travelling through the province of Quif, found that his Indian guide was a Jew, and pursuing his inquiries, discovered that immense numbers lived behind the Cordilleras. Francis, the name of his guide, admitted to Montesini, that his God was called Adonai, and that he acknowledged Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as his ancestors, and they claimed to have descended from the tribe of Reuben.
Acosta contends, that they have a tradition relative to the deluge; that they preserve the rite of circumcision; they offer the first fruits, and in Peru they eat the Paschal Lamb; they believe in the resurrection, and clothe the dead with the richest equipage. Lopez de Gomara says, that some of them, and not all, are circumcised. Acosta continues, "the Mexicans point out, the various stations as their ancestors advanced into their country, and it is precisely the route which they must have held, had they been emigrants from Asia."
Menassah Ben Israel declares, that the Indians of Mexico had a tradition, that their magnificent place of worship had been built by a people who wore their beards, and were more ancient than their Incas. In the universal history of 1748, it is affirmed that the Mexicans and other American Indians rend their garments, in order the more effectually to express grief -- the Hebrew custom at this day.
Lopez de Gomara states, that the Mexicans offer sacrifices of the first fruits, and when Cortez approached Mexico, Montezuma shut himself up for the space of eight days in fasting and prayer. Emanuel de Moreas and Acosta say, that the Brazilians marry in their own tribes and families; and Escorbatus affirms, that he frequently heard the southern tribes repeat the sacred notes Ha-le-lu-yah. Malvenda states, that several tombstones were found in St. Michaels, with ancient Hebrew characters.
When the Spaniards invaded Mexico, the Cholula was considered a holy city by the natives, with magnificent temples, in which the High-Priest Quetzacotl preached peace to man, and would permit no other offerings to the Master of Life, than the first-fruits of the harvest. "We know by our traditions," said the venerable Prince Montezuma, to the Spanish General Cortez. "that we who inhabit this country are not the natives but strangers who come from a great distance."
Don Alonzo Erecella, in his history of Chili, says, the Araucanians acknowledge one Supreme Being, and believe in the immortality of the soul; and the Abbe Clavigero declares, that they have a tradition of the great deluge. The laws and ceremonies of the Peruvians and Mexicans have, no doubt, been corrupted in the course of many ages, both in their sacrifices and worship.
Their great and magnificent temple, evidently in imitation of that erected by Solomon, was founded by Mango Capac, or rather by the Inca Yupabque, who endowed it with great wealth. Clavagero and DeVega in their very interesting account of this temple, say, "what we called the altar was on the east side of the temple. There were many doors to the temple, all of which were plated with gold, and four walls the whole way around, were crowned with a rich golden garland, more than an ell in width. Round the temple were five square pavilions, whose tops were in the form of pyramids. The fifth was lined entirely with gold, and was for the use of the Royal High-Priest of sacrifices, and in which all the deliberations concerning the temple were held. Some of the doors led to the schools where the Incas listen to the debates of the philosophers, sometimes themselves explaining the laws and ordinances."
Mexico and Central America abound in curiosities, exemplifying the fact of the Asiatic origin of the inhabitants, and it is not many years ago, that the ruins of a whole city, with a wall nearly seven miles in circumference, with castles, palaces, and temples, evidently of Hebrew or Phoenician architecture, was found on the river Palenque. The 35th number of the Foreign Quarterly Review contains an interesting account of those antiquities.
The ruins of this city near Guatemala, in Central America, are described by Del Rio in 1782, when taken in conjunction with the extraordinary, I may say, wonderful antiquities spread over the entire surface of that country, awaken recollections in the specimens of architecture, which carry us back to the early pages of history, and prove beyond the shadow of doubt, that we who imagined ourselves to be the natives of a new world, but recently discovered, inhabit a continent which rivaled the splendor of Egypt and Syria, and was peopled by a powerful and highly cultivated nation from the old world. When we speak of what is called Mexican antiquities, we must not confound the rude labours of modern times, with the splendid perfections which distinguished the efforts of those who reared the Egyptian pyramids, and built the temples of Thebes and Memphis. It is not Mexican antiquities, but the antiquities of Tultecan; and in addition to the ruins of Palenque, on this our continent, there are pyramids larger than those of Sachara in Egypt at Cholula, Otamba, Paxaca, Mitlan, Tlascola, and on the mountains of Tescoca, together with hieroglyphics, planispheres and zodiacs, a symbolic and Phonetic alphabet; papyrus, metopes, triglyphs, and temples and buildings of immense grandeur; military roads, aqueducts, viaducts, posting stations and distances; bridges of great grandeur and massive character, all presenting the most positive evidences of the existence of a powerful enterprising nation, which must have flourished two thousand years before the Spanish Conquest. Take, for example, the description of the temple at Palenque, which Lord Kingsborough, in his travels, not only declares was built by Jews, and is a copy of Solomon's temple, but which, no doubt, is precisely the model of the temple described by Ezekiel. Travellers speak of it in the following terms:
"It may be appropriately called an ecclesiastical city, rather than a temple. Within its vast precincts, there appear to be contained, (as indeed was, in some measure, the case with the area that embraced the various buildings of Solomon's temple,) a pyramidal tower, various sanctuaries, sepulchres; a small and a large quadrangular court, one surrounded as we have said, by cloisters; subterranean; initiatory galleries beneath; oracles, courts of justice, high places, and cells or dwellings for the various orders of priests. The whole combination of the buildings is encircled by a quadrilateral pilastered portico, embracing a quadrangular area, and resting on a terraced platform. This platform exhibits the same architectural model, which we have described as characterizing the single temples. It is composed of three graduated stuccoed terraces, sloping inwards, at an angle of about seventy degrees, in the form of a truncated pyramid. Four central staircases, (one facing each of the cardinal points,) ascend these terraces in the middle of each lateral facade of the quadrangle; and four gates fronting the same cardinal points, conduct from the top of each staircase into the body of the building, or into the great court. The great entrance, through a pilastered gateway, fronts the east, and descends by a second flight of steps into the cloistered court. On the various pilasters of the upper terrace are the metopes, with singular sculptures. On descending the second staircase into the cloistered court, on one side, appears the triple pyramidal tower, which may be inferred, from the curious distribution of little cells which surround the central room of each story, to have been employed as place of royal or private sepulture. It would be pronounced a striking and tasteful structure, according to any architectural rule. On another side of the same cloistered court, is the detached temple of the chief god, to whom the whole religious building appears to have been devoted, who appears to have been the great and only God of the nations who worshipped in this temple. Beneath the cloisters, entered by staircases from above, are what we believe to be the initiatory galleries. These opened into rooms, one of which has a stone couch in it, and others are distinguished by unintelligible apparatus carved in stone. The only symbol described as found within these sacred haunts is, however, perfectly Asiatic and perfectly intelligible; we mean two contending serpents. The remnant of an altar, or high place, occupies the centre of the cloistered quadrangle. The rest of the edifice is taken up with courts, palaces, detached temples, open divans, baths, and streets of priestly cells, or houses, in a greater or less degree of dilapidation." * * * "It is perfectly clear from the few records of their religious rites, which have come down to us, and which are principally derived from the extraordinary rolls of American papyrus, * on which their beautiful hieroglyphical system is preserved, (there is one of considerable extent in the Dresden museum,) that they were as simple, perhaps we may add with propriety, as innocent. Not only does it appear that they had no human sacrifices, but no animal sacrifices whatever. Flowers and fruits were the only offerings made to the presiding divinity of their temple.
When Columbus discovered America, he found an innocent people in a demi-savage state, with Jewish traditions, and the only reference to early times was a vague impression, that the ruins they saw were built by giants, and a people called wandering masons.
I have the most settled conviction of this theory. The magnificent ruins which are to be seen at this day in Mexico and Central America, were the works of the Phoenicians, and the irruption of the wandering tribes from the north-west coast of America, swept that nation away, and have ever since maintained possession of this county, until white men have thinned their ranks, and gradually encroached upon, and usurped a great part of their territory.
The only opposition made to the general declaration of travellers, that the Indians are of Jewish descent, is, that they are red men, and are beardless. Now, take the olive complexion of the Jews in Syria, pass the nation over the Euphrates into a warmer climate, let them mingle with Tartars and Chinese, and after several generations reach this continent, their complexion would undergo some shades of hue and colour; and as to beards they cannot grow while they are continually plucked, as is the Indian custom. The colour proves nothing against their origin. Take our fellow-citizens on our eastern borders, and compare their florid colour with the sickly hue and sallow complexions of those living on the southern shores, in the palmettoes and everglades, and we shall see a marked distinction, and yet they are members of the same family.
Du Pratz, speaking of the traditions of the Natches tribe, relates, that in answer to the question, "whence come you?" their reply was, "All that we know is that our fathers, to come hither, followed the sun, and came from the place where he rises. They were long in their journey, they were nearly, perishing, and were brought to this wilderness of the sun setting without seeking it." Souard says of the Indians of Surinam, on the authority of Nasci, a learned Jew residing there, that the dialect of those Indians common in Guiuana is soft, agreeable and regular, and their substantives are Hebrew. Their language, in the roots, idioms, and particular construction, has the genius of the Hebrew language, as their orations have the bold, laconic and figurative style of the Hebrew prophets."
The Rev. Mr. Chapman says of the Osages, "it is their universal practice to salute the dawn of every morning with their devotion." A custom always prevailing among pious Jews.
Malvenda and Acosta both affirm, that the natives had a tradition of a jubilee, according to the jubilee of Israel.
Dr. Beatty, in speaking of the festival of the first-fruits by the nations west of the Ohio, says, "at this ceremony twelve of their old men divide a deer into twelve parts, and these men hold up the venison and fruits with their faces to the east, acknowledging the bounty of God to them. A singular and close imitation of the ceremonies and sacrifices of the temple." The doctor further says, "they have another feast which looks like the Passover."
Sir Alexander MacKenzie, in his tour to the north-west coast, says, that "the Chepewyan Indians have a tradition among them, that they originally came from another country, inhabited by very wicked people, and had traversed a great lake which was in one place narrow and shallow, and full of islands, where they had suffered great misery; and a further tradition has it that nine parts of their nation out of ten, passed over the river. The Mexicans affirm, that seven tribes or houses passed from the east to the wilderness."
Beltrami says, that the skeletons of the mammoths found in Kentucky and Missouri, and other parts of America, have been ascertained to resemble precisely those which have been found in Siberia and the eastern part of Asia, showing the facility of communication between the two coasts. And here it may be well to state a fact, which is strongly corroborative of the view we have taken, not only of the possibility of passing from one continent to the other, but of the actual and probably constant communication between them. Charlevoix, says he knew a Catholic priest, called Father Grillon, in Canada, who was recalled to Paris after his mission had been ended, and who was subsequently appointed to a similar mission in China. One day in Tartary, he suddenly encountered a Huron woman with whom he had been well acquainted in Canada, and who informed him that she had been captured, and passed from nation to nation, until she reached the north-west coast, when she crossed into Tartary.
Since delivering the present lecture, I have received a letter from Mr. Catlin, the celebrated painter, who for the last five years has been residing among the Indians. Mr. Catlin says,
"The first thing that strikes the traveller in an Indian country as evidence of their being of Jewish origin, (and it is certainly a very forcible one,) is the striking resemblance which they generally bear in contour, and expression of head, to those people. In their modes and customs, there are many striking resemblances, and perhaps as proof, they go much further than mere personal resemblance. Amongst those customs, I shall mention several that have attracted my attention, though probably they have never before been used for the same purpose; and others I may name, which are familiar to you, and which it may not be amiss to mention, as I have seen them practised while in their country.
"The universal custom among them of burying their dead with feet to the east, I could conceive to have no other meaning, or object than a journey to the east after death -- like the Jews, who expected to travel under ground after death to the land of Canaan. On inquiry, I found that though they were all going towards the 'setting sun,' during their lifetimes, they expected to travel to the east after death.
"Amongst the tribes, the women are not allowed to enter the medicine lodge. As they were not allowed in Judea to enter the court of Israel. Like the Jewish custom also, they are not allowed to mingle in worship with the men, and at meals, are always separated.
"In their modes, fastings, feastings, or sacrifices, they have also a most striking resemblance. Amongst all the western tribes, who have not been persuaded from those forms by white men, they are still found scrupulously and religiously adhering to, and practising them to the letter. The very many times and modes of sacrificing, remind us forcibly of the customs of the Israelites; and the one in particular, which has been seen amongst several of the tribes, though I did not witness it myself, wherein, like the manner of the 'peace-offering,' the firstling and that of the male is offered, and 'no bone is to be broken.' Such circumstances afford the strongest kind of proofs. All the tribes have a great feast at the dawn of spring, and at those feasts their various sacrifices are made. At the approach of the season of green corn, a feast of the first ears are sacrificed, with great solemnity, followed by feasting and dancing: so at the ripening of different kinds of fruit. The first and best piece that is cut from a buffalo is always Deo Dante.
"Over the medicine lodge, and also over the lodges of the most distinguished chiefs, are hung on high poles large quantities of fine cloth, white buffalo robes, or other most costly articles which can be procured, there to decay, in offering to the Great Spirit.
"The bunch of willow boughs with which each dancer is supplied, in the Mandan religious ceremonies, the sacrificing and other forms therein observed, certainly render it somewhat analogous to the Israelitish feast of tabernacles.
"The universal practice of "solus cum sola' of the women, ablution and anointing with bear's grease, is strikingly similar to the Jewish custom. Every family has a small lodge expressly for this purpose, and when any one of the family are ready for it, it is erected within a few rods, and meat is carried to her, where she dwells, and cooks and eats by herself; an object of superstitious dread to every person in the village.
"The absence of every species of idolatry amongst the North American Indians, affords also a striking proof of the ceremonial law, and stamps them at once, in one respect, at all events, differing from all other savage tribes of which we have any knowledge."
What are, I may ask, the characters of these people? On the discovery of America by Columbus, nearly 2000 years after the dispersion of the Hebrew tribes, the whole continent is found peopled; not with a race of wild men, of cannibals, of savages, but with a race of intellectual, moral, innocent persons, divided into many hundred nations, and spread over 8000 miles of territory. "I swear to your majesties," said Columbus, writing to Ferdinand and Isabella, "that there is not a better people in the world than these; more affectionate or mild. They love their neighbours as themselves; their language is the sweetest, the softest and the most cheerful, for they always speak smilingly." Major Long says, "they are the genuine sons of nature; they have all the virtues nature can give, without the vices of civilization. They are artless, fearless, and live in constant exercise of moral and christian virtues, though they know it not."
Charlevoix gives his testimony in their behalf. "They manifest," says he, "much stability in their engagements, patience in affliction, and submissive acquiescence in what they apprehend the will of Providence. In all this, they display a nobleness of soul and constancy of mind, at which we rarely arrive, with all our philosophy and religion."
Du Pratz contends, that they have a greater degree of prudence, faithfulness and generosity, than those who would be offended with a comparison with them. "No people," says he, "are more hospitable and free."
Bartram, who lived many years in the Creek nation, says, "Joy, contentment, love and friendship without guile or affectation, seem inherent in them, or predominant in their vital principle, for it leaves them but with their breath. They are," says he, "just, honest, liberal and hospitable to strangers; considerate and affectionate to their wives, children and relations; frugal and persevering, charitable and forbearing."
Who are they? Men do not grow up like stones or trees or rocks; they are not found in herds like wild animals. Yahweh that made man in his own image, gave to the Indians an origin and parentage, like unto the rest of the great family of mankind, the work of his own almighty hand. From whom then did our red brethren, the rightful owners of this continent, descend?
There seems to be no difference of opinion that they are of Asiatic origin, and not indigenous to our soil. Nearly all writers and historians concur on this point -- they are Asiatic -- they crossed to the continent of America from Asia; but who are they, arid from whom have they descended?
Eldad, who wrote learnedly of the twelve tribes, in 1300, contends, that the tribe of Dan went into Ethiopia, and pretends that the tribes of Naphtali, Gad and Asher followed. That they had a king of their own, and could muster 120,000 horse and 100,000 foot. In relation to part of these three tribes, there might have been some truth in it, for Tigleth Pelieser did compel them to go into Ethiopia. Issachar, he contends, remained with the Medes and Persians. Zebulon extended from the mountains of Pharan to the Euphrates. Reuben dwelt behind Pharan, and-spoke Arabic. Ephraim and half Manasseh were thrown on the southern coast. Benjamin of Tudela places Dan, Asher, Naphtali and Zebulon on the banks of the river Gozan. In the midst of all these contradictory and vague statements, two opinions prevail among Jews and Christians, in early and in late periods. One is, that the ten tribes went into Tartary, where they remained; the other, that from Tartary they penetrated into America.
Manasseh Ben Israel, the most learned of the nation, declares that they passed into America. Lescarbot believes, that the Indians are the posterity of Ham, expelled by Joshua, and who passed out of the Mediterranean, and were driven by storms to the American coast; Grotius contends, that the inhabitants of the new world were originally from Greenland; and while Basnage frankly admits, that manifest tracts of Judaism are to be found in America, he contends, that the tribes could not have overcome the warlike Scythians and penetrated to this continent, and that they remained in Halak and Heber, and in the cities of the Medes.
Truth, no doubt, lies between these opinions. Many of the tribes passed into Egypt and Ethiopia, many remained in Persia and Tartary, all did not make for the north-west coast, nor was it necessary that all should do so. There were degrees of piety and condition then as now. Restore Jerusalem to-morrow, and all the Jews will not return there. Rabbi Akiba contends, that all the noble families remained in Persia. A number, a considerable number, no doubt, impressed with the solemn belief, that if they remained in Persia, they would in time become idolaters, and lose all the landmarks of their ancient faith, resolved, like those who went out of Egypt, to remain no longer in bondage, and, as Esdras says; they departed for a country "wherein mankind never before had dwelt" -- and the resolution was perfectly feasible. It was a thickly populated country, and by keeping on the borders of China, they would, within the time prescribed, namely eighteen months, have reached our continent. At this day, there is a constant intercourse between the continents, and a trip to the Rocky mountains, once so terrifying, is now a mere summer's journey.
If the Indians of America are not the descendants of the missing tribes, again I ask, from whom are they descended? From the Egyptians? Wherein in their belief, is there the least resemblance to the worship of Isis and Osiris, or the hieroglyphics or historical reminiscences of that very ancient people? Are they part of the fierce Scythians? Their warlike propensities would prove them to be so; but where among those barbarians do we discover the belief in one Great Spirit, together with the softer virtues, the purity and talents of the Indians? Are they of the Tartar race? Their complexion, "the shadowed livery of the burning sun," might be offered in evidence; but, they have not the flat head, the angular and twinkling eye, nor the diminutive figure of the Chinese or Tartars.
The Indians have distinct Jewish features, and neither in mind, manners, nor religion, bear any affinity to the Tartar race. I have endeavoured to show this by their traditions, by their religion, by their ceremonies, which retain so much of the ancient worship. But there is one proof more, which, in my mind, removes all doubt. Sir Alexander MacKenzie, in his journal of a tour to the north-west continent of America, declares from his own observation, that the Chippewa Indians practise circumcision, which fact is corroborated by several other travellers amongst the various tribes.
It will scarcely be necessary for me to refer you to the many prophetic warnings relative to the sins, the denunciations; the promises, the dispersion and redemption, of the Jewish people, which we find throughout the Bible. With that good book you all are or should be familiar -- it is a delightful book, view it in any manner you please. Let the unbeliever sneer and the philosopher doubt, it is certain that the most important events predicted by the prophets hare come to pass, giving an assurance which is stripped of all doubt, that what remains to be fulfilled, will be fulfilled. In what direction are we to look for the missing tribes according to the prophets? From Jeremiah we learn that they are to come from a country north and west from Judea. From Isaiah, "it is a country far from Judea," and answering also "from the ends of the earth."
In Zechariah we are told, it must be in the western regions, or the country of the going down of the sun; and according to the historian Esdras, it must be a land wherein mankind never before had dwelt, and of course, free from the residence of the heathen.
Our prophet Isaiah has a noble reference to the dispersed tribes and their redemption, which may be here appropriately quoted. I use his language, the Hebrew, which from its peculiar associations should be always interesting to you.
"And it shall come to pass in that day, that Yahweh shall set his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.”
"And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the earth.”
"And there shall be a highway, for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, like as it was to Israel, in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt."
May I not with propriety refer, among other evidences, to the cruel persecutions which have uniformly been practised towards the Indians of this continent, not unlike those which the chosen people have suffered for the last eighteen centuries? "What makes you so melancholy?" said General Knox to the chief of an Indian deputation, that he was entertaining in this city, at the close of the revolutionary war. "I'll tell you, brother, said the aged chief; "I have been looking at your beautiful city -- the great water full of ships -- the fine country, and see how prosperous you all are. But then, I could not help thinking, that this fine country was ours. Our ancestors lived here. They enjoyed it as their own in peace. It was the gift of the Great Spirit to them, and their children. At last, white men came in a great canoe. They only asked to let them tie it to a tree, lest the water should carry it away. We consented. They then said some of their people were sick, and they asked permission to land them, and put them under the shade of the trees. The ice then came and they could not go away. They then begged a piece of land to build wigwams for the winter. We granted it to them. They then asked corn to keep them from starving. We furnished it out of our own scanty supply They promised to go away when the ice melted. When this happened, they, instead of going pointed to the big guns round the wigwams and said, 'we shall stay here.' Afterwards came more: they brought intoxicating drinks, of which the Indians became fond. They persuaded them to sell their land, and, finally, have driven us back, from time to time, to the wilderness, far from the water, the fish, and the oysters. They have scared away our game -- my people are wasting away. We live in the want of all things, while you are enjoying abundance in our fine and beautiful country. This makes me sorry, brother, and I cannot help it."
These persecutions and repeated acts of cruelty and injustice appear to have no termination -- the work of destruction, commenced with the Narragansetts, will extend to the Seminoles, and gradually to the blue waters of the Pacific. Look even now at the contest maintained by a handful of Indians in the everglades of Florida. Do they war against unequal numbers for a crown -- for a part of that immense surplus which overflows from the coffers of a country, which was once their own? No -- they fight for the privilege of dying where the bones of their ancestors lie buried, and yet we, Christians as we call ourselves, deny them that boon, and drive the lords of the soil into the den of the otter.
In referring to the splendid specimens of Indian oratory, where, I would ask, can you find such wisdom, such lofty and pure eloquence, among the Chinese and Tartars, even at this day?
The Indians, like the Hebrews, speak in parables. Of their dialects, there is no doubt, that the Algonquin and Huron are the parents of five hundred Indian tongues -- they are copious, rich, regular, forcible and comprehensive; and although here and there strong Hebrew analogies may be found, yet it is reasonable to suppose, that the Indian languages are a compound of all those tongues belonging to the various Asiatic nations, through which they passed during their pilgrimage.
Firmly as I believe the American Indian to have been descended from the tribes of Israel, and that our continent is full of the most extraordinary vestiges of antiquity, there is one point, a religious as well as a historical point, in which you may possibly continue to doubt, amidst almost convincing evidences.
If these are the remnants of the nine and a half tribes which were carried into Assyria, and if we are to believe in all the promises of the restoration, and the fulfillment of the prophecies, respecting the final advent of the Jewish nation, what is to become of these our red brethren, whom we are driving before us so rapidly, that a century more will find them lingering on the borders of the Pacific ocean?
Possibly, the restoration may be near enough to include even a portion of these interesting people. Our learned Rabbis have always deemed it sinful to compute the period of the restoration; they believe that when the sins of the nation were atoned for, the miracle of their redemption would be manifested. My faith does not rest wholly in miracles -- Providence disposes of events, human agency must carry them out. That benign and supreme power which the children of Israel had never forsaken, has protected the chosen people amidst the most appalling dangers, has saved them from the uplifted sword of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, and while the most powerful nations of antiquity have crumbled to pieces, we have been preserved, united and unbroken, the same now as we were in the days of the patriarchs -- brought from darkness to light, from the early and rude periods of learning to the bright reality of civilization, of arts, of education and of science.
CHEROKEE NATION
The Cherokee (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩ, Tsalagi) are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States (principally Georgia, the Carolinas and East Tennessee). Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family. In the 19th century, historians and ethnographers recorded their oral tradition that told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian-speaking peoples were located. In the 19th century, white settlers in the United States called the Cherokees one of the "Five Civilized Tribes", because they had assimilated numerous cultural and technological practices of European American settlers. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the Cherokee Nation has more than 300,000 members, the largest of the 565 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States.
The Cherokee refer to themselves as Tsalagi (ᏣᎳᎩ) or Aniyvwiyaʔi (ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ), which means "Principal People." The Iroquois called the Cherokee Oyata’ge'ronoñ (inhabitants of the cave country). Many theories — though none proven — abound about the origin of the word Cherokee. It may have originally been derived from the Choctaw word Cha-la-kee, which means "those who live in the mountains", or Choctaw Chi-luk-ik-bi, meaning "those who live in the cave country". The earliest Spanish rendering of Cherokee, from 1755, is Tchalaquei. Another theory is Cherokee derives from a Lower Creek word, Ciló-kki, meaning someone who speaks another language. The most likely derivation, however, is an Anglicisation of their own name, Tsalagi.
Much of what is known about pre-18th-century Native American cultures, including the Cherokee, has come from records of Spanish expeditions. Some of this work was not translated into English and made available to historians until the 20th century. In addition, the dominance of English colonists over the Southeast led to a discounting of Spanish sources for some time.
American writer John Howard Payne wrote about pre-19th century Cherokee culture and society. The Payne papers describe the account by Cherokee elders of a traditional two-part societal structure. A "white" organization of elders represented the seven clans. As Payne recounted, this group, which was hereditary and priestly, was responsible for religious activities, such as healing, purification, and prayer. A second group of younger men, the "red" organization, was responsible for warfare. The Cherokee considered warfare a polluting activity, and warriors required the purification of the priestly class before participants could reintegrate into normal village life. This hierarchy had disappeared long before the 18th century.
Researchers have debated the reasons for the change. Some historians believe the decline in priestly power originated with a revolt by the Cherokee against the abuses of the priestly class known as the Ani-kutani. Ethnographer James Mooney, who studied the Cherokee in the late 1880s, was the first to trace the decline of the former hierarchy to this revolt. By the time of Mooney, the structure of Cherokee religious practitioners was more informal, based more on individual knowledge and ability than upon heredity.
Another major source of early cultural history comes from materials written in the 19th century by the didanvwisgi (ᏗᏓᏅᏫᏍᎩ), Cherokee medicine men, after Sequoyah's creation of the Cherokee syllabary in the 1820s. Initially only the didanvwisgi adopted and used such materials, which were considered extremely powerful in a spiritual sense. Later, the syllabary and writings were widely adopted by the Cherokee people.
Several early explorers, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, claimed to have collected evidence that some of the Native American tribes might be descended from the Ten Lost Tribes. James Adair, an Irish trader and historian who lived among the Cherokees for forty years in the 18th century, decided the Indians were one of the lost tribes of Yahdah, and wrote seventy thousand words on the subject at a time when printed words were dear. He used as evidence such topics as their division into tribes; their language and dialects; their festivals, feasts, and religious rites; their absolutions and anointings; their laws of uncleanness, their avoidance on unclean things; their practices of marriage, divorce, and punishment for adultery; and their ornaments. Adair was one of a series of writers who held similar views, among them Gregorio Garcia, Bartolome de las Casas, Thomas Thorowgood, John Eliot, Manasseh ben Israel, Cotton Mather, Roger Williams, William Penn, and Charles Beatty. Below is a map showing the Cherokee Nations and their migration throughout the Americas.
HOWSHUA AMARIEL, CHEROKEE INDIAN
When I was in Israel in 2008, I met a man Howshua Amariel, who is of Cherokee Indian descent. I met him at Tel Arad, where the only excavated House of Yahweh, in the land of Israel, is located. Most intriguing was his information on the Cherokee Nation/People, showing that they were of the Dispersed Tribes of Israel. His knowledge of the ancient Paleo-Hebraic language was based on the fact that he was taught the Cherokee language and aleph-bet. He is the first to write an Hebrew/English translation of the Paleo-Hebraic Holy Scriptures. While this is not an attempt to exalt a man, I think it is important to understand that there are Cherokee Indians who have spent most of their lives to prove their Hebrew heritage and have the proofs to back up past historians. I saw most of his archaeological evidence and am a witness to what is written about him to be true. What is most important is that he has spent the last 15 years revealing the House of Yahweh in Tel Arad to the world. I also found it to be interesting that a Cherokee Indian Chief has devoted his life to protecting and promoting the House of Yahweh in the land of Israel and sees the great importance of this most awesome family name, House of Yahweh. Here is information on this man and his studies.
Howshua Amariel was born in a family of Native American Cherokee (Hispanic) they also share the distinctive belief on his Native American linage that they are descendants from the lost tribe of Ephraim that came originally from the Middle East around 2500 years ago to the Americas. The family celebrates all the Israelite holidays, keeps Shabbat, follows the laws of Kashrut, (dietary laws) and maintained the knowledge of the old Hebrew language. Thus Mr. Amariel has dedicated his life to the study of ancient Hebrew Torah.
“Identifying with the Black Hebrews, Amariel has a notebook full of leaflets, oceanography charts, genealogy maps, and linguistic analysis all pointing towards his conclusion; that one of the Judean tribes wandered through the Arabian Peninsula to Africa and established its own branch of Judaism there.”
Rabbi Howshua Amariel's quest went beyond proving to the State of Israel the genetic link between the Black Indians and their Jewish brethren. He also stated that many Africans are in fact Black Hebrews. As such, he is petitioning the Israeli government to grant them both the full right of return allowed to Ethiopian Jews. "There are millions of us, who want to return here to Israel. People say we are the lost tribe, but we are not lost, we know exactly who we are." After Amariel’s statements there followed several articles and additional DNA evidence from various members of the Cherokee Nation, which linked to the Jewish people. However, the belief that some Native Americans were a Lost tribe of Israel goes back for centuries and includes individuals like the 1782 President of the Continental Congress Elias Boudinot and Mordecai Noah, the most influential Jew in the United States in the early 19th Century.
As we have seen from the above mentioned articles, the Indians and most notably the Cherokee Indians have kept many ordinances of the Laws of Yahweh. They were a peaceful, spiritual people who believed in one source of Power, one Spirit, one Creator of the universe and the earth. Today, one of their kind was instrumental in revealing the founded House of Yahweh in Israel.
RESEMBLANCES OF THE CHEROKEE AND HEBREW RELIGIOUS ORDINANCES
The Cherokee Indians in their religious beliefs had similiar practices in their beliefs, as our modern Hebrew counterparts, called the Jews. We have already read that the original British Colonists who wrote about the Early Cherokee or Old Cherokee (of the Mediavel Cherokee Era of the 1600s) report that they were some kind of Hebrews or Jewish Sect! These include the reports of Payne, Butrick, and Adair. And Bartram (1701) presented the Cherokee as unique among the other Native Americans as they were NOT idolatrous, but seem to have some kind of God-fearing religion, and belief in a ONE TRUE GOD! Now, while modern historians tend to laugh at these claims, the records of this Era, seem to be rather convincing--at face value. And thus the Early or Mediavel Cherokee had some kind of Hebrew, if not Messianic (Jewish-Christian) Religion.
Below is similiar practices of the Cherokee people in comparison to the Jewish people.
With all glory to Yahweh and to our King, Yahshua Messiah, and with the understanding of Yahweh’s Spirit, which is Holy, we dedicate this study to Yahweh and to the advancement of learning for the Saints of Yahweh to help grow into the Holy House of Yahweh. “To the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them.”
In order to stay with the more scholarly correct pronounciations of the creator and His Sons name, we have determined to use the name Yahweh, instead of Lord, God, Jehovah, or Allah. For His Son, we use Yahshua, instead of Yeshua, Jesus, Iesus, or Lord. So wherever the reader sees Yahweh, that is the name of the Creator, and wherever they see Yahshua, that is the name of the Son, or Messiah.
The following article was contributed by Kepha Arcemont Hawkins, a.k.a. Kepha ben Abraham.
YAHWEH’S HOLY GARMENTS FOR THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL
As you read this article, nothing here is meant to be offensive to any religion, whether Jewish or Christian. All the information is for educational use only.
In the Law of Yahweh, Yahweh tells us, the children of Israel, that we are to have a reminder of His Laws on our garments. This Law is given to us as a reminder that Yahweh’s Laws are to be in the forefront of our minds. They should be first in our thinking in everything that we do. They are part of the Covenant, which brings us to Messiah. The Law of Yahweh gives us instruction to make fringes in the borders of our garments, and is a part of the terms and conditions that Yahweh requires us to follow, in order to be in a Covenant Relationship, with our Heavenly Father. We find the following information concerning the Holy Garment with it’s specific adornments in the book of Numbers.
Numbers 15:38 “Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue.”
Today if one were to go to the land of Israel, you would see many of the Orthodox Jewish men wearing a prayer garment, called a Tallit under their clothes. The Tallit they wear has tassels, called tzitzits, which are looped on the four corners of the garment. They contain 8 strings and 5 knots. Below is a picture of different styles tzitzits tied in various ways.
Some Jewish Orthodox observers, wear a smaller tallit under their shirts or jackets, and others have a larger garment that they wear over their bodies and heads when doing their prayers 3 times a day. They also put on the tefillah on their right hands and arm when in prayer to the creator. They believe the wearing of the Holy Garment is something that every good Jew should do. They base this on the Law of Yahweh revealed in Numbers 15:38 and Deuteronomy 22:12. We will examine the Jewish history and belief, as well as the historical records of other nations who also had holy garments patterned after the description in the Torah.
HISTORY OF THE JEWISH TALLIT
We find the following information concerning the Jewish Prayer Shawl, called a Tallit, online at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallit
A tallit (Hebrew: טַלִּית) (talet in Sephardic Hebrew and Ladino) (tallis, in Ashkenazic Hebrew and Yiddish) pl. tallitot (talleisim, tallism, in Ashkenazic Hebrew and Yiddish) is a Jewish prayer shawl. The tallit is worn over the outer clothes. A tallit is worn during the morning prayers (Shacharit) on weekdays, Shabbat and holidays. The tallit has special twined and knotted fringes known as tzitzit attached to its four corners. The tallit can be made of any materials except a mixture of wool and linen (a mixture known as shatnez that is prohibited by the Torah). Most traditional tallitot are made of wool. Tallit are often given as gifts to children on their Bar Mitzvahs.
Here is a picture of an Orthodox Jew wearing the Tallit.
Reading further about the Tallit, that every good Jew and some Messianic Church followers wear, we find the following information.
The Bible does not command wearing of a unique prayer shawl or tallit. Instead, it teaches that people wore an outer garment of some type to cover themselves and instructs them to add fringes (tzitzit) to the 4 corners of these garments(Numbers 15:38, Deuteronomy 22:12). These passages do not specify tying particular types or numbers of knots in the fringes. Nor do they specify a gender division between men and women, or between native Israelite/Hebrew people and those assimilated by them. The law does say however, that a stranger can keep the law as long as they join into the family and are circumcised.The exact customs regarding the tying of the tzitzit and the format of the tallit are post-Biblical and rabbinical and can vary between various Jewish communities.
Encyclopaedia Judaica, describes the prayer shawl as "a rectangular mantle that looked like a blanket and was worn by men in ancient times". Also, it "is usually white and made either of wool, cotton, or silk". According to the biblical commandment, a blue (Hebrew תכלת, "tĕkeleth", tek·ā'·leth) thread (Hebrew פתיל "pethiyl") known as "tekeleth" itself, is included in the tzitzit.
Please notice some points in this revealing of the Jewish Holy Garment.
- The bible does not command wearing a unique prayer shawl or tallit.
- The Jews presume that people wore this garment, or an outer garment of some type.
- The scripture in Numbers 15:38, Deuteronomy 22:12 do not specify tying particular types and numbers of knots in the fringes.
- They do not specify a gender division between men and women.
- The exact custom regarding tying the tzittzit and the format of the tallit are post-Biblical and rabbinical and vary between various Jewish communities.
If you notice the above information, we can see that nothing in this Jewish Garment appears to be from the scriptures, other than the tassel or fringe, but more of an interpretation of the scriptures by the Rabbi/Jewish leaders. Let’s look at what the Encylopedia Judaica says of it’s origins, taken online from: http://www.judaism-101.com/tallit
Although wearing a tallit is not specifically commanded in the Bible, there is a commandment in the Bible to tie fringes to the corners of your outer garments (Numbers 15:38, Deuteronomy 22:12). This was interpreted by the sages to be a specific garment: the tallit, and that it should be used in Jewish prayer. Thus throughout the generations the Jewish prayer shawl has been preserved as a garment for prayer.
Now I ask you the reader, should you as a true believer wear something that is not in the Holy Scriptures, and was interpreted by the sages and rabbi’s? Why would we wear something that is interpreted by a man, who as far as we know wasn’t inspired by Yahweh? Shouldn’t we follow Yahweh, instead of the sages? All religions must be careful in thinking that they somehow are the chosen ones and all other religions are false. In order to come into unity, we must learn to reason together as a body. When in Israel, if you don’t pray with a tallit in the Orthodox community, then you are considered to not be a true Hebrew, or Jew. They take the wearing of the Tallit and Tefillin as strictly commanded. They are strict in their interpretation of the Law. We will find out more about this in the study. Let’s get some more information on this subject and see what the Jews/Messianic Churches practice in regard to their traditions.
A tallit is worn during the morning prayers on Shabbat; Jewish holidays and throughout the week. Traditionally only men wore a tallit, but more recently in liberal Jewish communities men and women are wearing prayer shawls. The bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah; the Jewish ‘coming of age’ ceremony, is the first time a young person will wear a tallit. This is the first time a young person is called up to the Torah for an aliyah, and so customarily they wear a tallit. Thus a tallit is often given as a bar mitzvah gift or bat mitzvah gift. In Ashkenazi communities a young man will wear a small tallit until the time that he is married, and then he will exchange this for a tallit gadol.
The tallit is put on before the morning prayers and before putting on tefillin. When the tallit is put on every morning there is a special prayer shawl blessing that is said in Hebrew:
ברוך אתה יי אלוהינו מלך העולם
Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam
Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe
אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו להתעטף בציצית
asher kidishanu b’mitz’votav v’tzivanu l’hit’ateif ba-tzitzit
Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to wrap ourselves in the tzitzit.
This tallit prayer is said while holding the tallit in front of you, and then it is put over the shoulders and you hold it over your head and face for a moment, then the tallit is draped over the shoulders like a shawl. The tallit should sit comfortably on the shoulders during prayers, but will need re-adjusting from time to time. For this reason a tallit clip is used by some people to keep the prayer shawl in place during prayers.
Now understand what you are reading above is 100% traditions, none of the above information is from the Law of Yahweh! This practice, revealed above, comes from sages and rabbi’s interpretations of the Law concerning wearing tzitzits on your garments and the type and style of the Tallit or prayer shawl. Even the prayer is made up by rabbi’s! So now should we follow the customs of the East? The customs of the Jews? The customs of the Rabbi’s? The customs of Messianic Churches? I think most true believers would answer NO to the above questions, and that we should not be ensnared into following traditions! There is nothing wrong with traditions as long as they are not against scripture, but religious leaders should be careful into teaching commandments of men, as commandments of Yahweh. Traditions separate people of faith!
Etymology of the Word Tallit
Tallit is an Aramaic word from the root tll טלל meaning cover. Tallit literally means cloak or sheet but in Talmudic times already referred to the Jewish prayer shawl. The tallit is similar to the Roman pallium worn today by senior Roman Catholic priests, the Roman toga and the Arab keffiyeh. The tallit or other similar garment is suitable for the climate in West Asia: typically the days are hot and the talit can be draped around the body and head to provide cover from the sun or just bunched up on the shoulders for later evening use; the evenings can be dramatically cool and the talit could be draped around the neck and shoulders like a scarf to provide warmth.
The Kabbalists considered the tallit as a special garment for the service of God, intended, in connection with the tefillin, to inspire awe and reverence for God at prayer. The tallit is worn by worshipers at the morning prayer on weekdays, Shabbat, and holy days; by the hazzan (cantor) at every prayer while before the ark; and by the reader of Torah, as well as by all other functionaries during the Torah service.
The use of the tallit begins in the Biblical period around 1800 BCE. The ancient Jewish tallit design was different than that known today. Originally it was a large white rectangular garment with tzitzyot in each corner and was used as a garment, bed sheet, and burial shroud.
In the book The Ancient Jewish Shroud At Turin by John N. Lupia; Lupia shows the historical development of the tallit when its design began to change during the second half of the first century CE and began to take on the forms known today beginning around 1000 CE. The long tradition of a single orthodox form of the tallit became modified in a more culturally diverse atmosphere and continued to change throughout time until it became permuted and shortened in length as the kitel, tallit katan, tallit gadol, and the more common tallit prayer shawl form know today.
In the Diaspora, Jews are buried in a plain, wooden casket. The corpse is collected from the place of death (home, hospital, etc.) by the chevra kadisha (burial committee). After a ritual washing of the body, the body is dressed in a kittel (shroud) and then a tallit. One of the tzitzit is then cut off. In the Land of Israel, burial is without a casket, and the kittel and tallit are the only coverings for the corpse.
Now I ask you, does Yahweh want us to wear a burial clothe to remember His Laws? We are not dead to Yahweh, His Laws are not dead, and neither is His Son, Yahshua Messiah! The Law does not specify to bury a Hebrew in a Tallit, so this is most likely another Jewish tradition. Reading further about the Jewish Holy Garment we find two types of Tallits.
The tallit katan, or "small" tallit, is a fringed undergarment worn by Orthodox Jews. Some hasidic Jews wear a tallit katan on top of their shirts. The rules of a tallit katan are the same as that of a tallit "Gadol" in tying and materials. Below is a picture of a tallit katan.
Catholic linen Amice.
The tallit gadol (traditionally known as tallét gedolah amongst Sephardim), or "large" tallit, is worn over one's clothing resting on the shoulders. This is the prayer shawl that is worn during the morning services in synagogue by all male participants, and in many communities by the leader of the afternoon and evening prayers as well. The tallit gadol is usually woven of wool — especially amongst Ashkenazim. Some Spanish and Portuguese Jews use silk tallitot. Today some tallitot are made of polyester and cotton. Tallitot may be of any colour but are usually white with black, blue or white stripes along the edge. Sizes of tallitot vary, and are a matter of custom and preference. Some are large enough to cover the whole body while others hang around the shoulders, the former being more common amongst Orthodox Jews, the latter among Conservative, Reform and other denominations. The neckband of the tallit, sometimes woven of silver or gold thread, is called the atarah. The tallit gadol is often kept in a dedicated pouch or cloth bag, which can be quite simple or ornately decorated.
I have been witness to certain Messianic Churches who wear the Jewish Holy Garments, but for some reason they only allow the men to wear them. This is their tradition and understanding within their specific group. There is no scriptural explanation to back up their belief, other than they consider them to be a Priestly Holy Garment for men. Let’s examine some more history into this tradition!
Historically, women have not been obligated to wear a tallit, since they are not bound to perform positive mitzvot which are time-specific, and the obligation to wear a tallit only applies by day. Many early authorities did permit women to wear a tallit, such as Isaac ibn Ghiyyat (b. 1038), Rashi (1040–1105), Rabbeinu Tam (ca 1100–1171), Zerachya ben Yitzhak Halevi of Lunel (ca. 1125–1186), Rambam (1135–1204), Rabbi Eliezer ben Yoel Halevi (ca 1140–ca 1225), Rashba (1235–1310), Aharon Halevi of Barcelona (b. ca 1235?), Rabbi Yisrael Yaaqob Alghazi (1680–1761), Rabbi Yomtob ben Yisrael Alghazi (1726–1802)). There was, however, a gradual movement towards prohibition, mainly initiated by the Medieval Ashkenazi Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg (the Maharam). The Rema states that while women are technically allowed to don a tallit it would appear to be an act of arrogance (yuhara) for women to perform this commandment. The Maharil and the Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel both view a talit as a “male garment” and thus find that a woman wearing a talit to be in violation of the precept prohibiting a woman from wearing a man’s garment.
In contemporary Orthodox Judaism, there is a debate on the appropriateness of women wearing tzitzit which has hinged on whether women are allowed to perform commandments from which they are exempt. According to Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik the issue depends on the intention with which such an act is undertaken, eg whether it is intended to bring a person closer to the Almighty, or for political or protest purposes. Other commentators hold that women are prohibited generally, without making an individual inquiry. The view that women donning a tallit would be guilty of arrogance is cited as applying to attempts of making a political statement as to the ritual status of the genders, particularly in the Modern Orthodox community, are generally more inclined to regard contemporary women's intentions as religiously appropriate.
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein wrote that permission is granted to every woman who wishes to fulfil even those mitzvot which the Torah did not obligate; and they indeed fulfil a mitzvah and receive the reward for the fulfilment of ït including saying the appropriate associated blessing (as with shofar, lulav etc. And also tzitzit are applicable for a woman who desires to wear a four cornered garment - it should be different than a man’s garment - and by attaching tzitzit, she fulfils this mitzvah.
Rabbi Yisrael Yaaqob Alghazi and Rabbi Yomtob ben Yisrael Alghazi held that the observance of this mitzvah by women was not only permitted but actually commendable, since such diligence amongst the non-obligated would inspire these women's male relatives to be even more diligent in their own observance.
Depending on what Rabbi, you believe and follow, we can see there is much debate and disagreement with this Jewish tradition! So should we be following traditions of men? Let’s see what Yahshua Messiah said regarding this subject.
Mattithyah 15:1-3,7-9 “Then came to Yahshua scribes and Pharisees, which were of Yerusalem, saying; Why do your Disciples transgress the traditions of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread? But He answered and said unto them, Why do you also transgress the Laws of Yahweh by your traditions? You Hypocrites, well did Isayah prophesy of you, saying, “This people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the Laws of men!”
Yahchanan Mark 7:9 “And he said unto them, Full well you reject the Law of Yahweh, that you may keep your own tradition.”
We can see from the Greatest Teacher in the World, Yahshua Messiah, that we can be guilty of transgressing the Laws of Yahweh, if we follow the tradition of men! As we can see from the above information concerning the Tallit, as revealed to us by the Jews and Messianic Churches understanding, we would be rejecting Yahweh if we follow their understanding of this Law, if it is contrary to the scriptures! We are warned time and time again, by Yahshua and the Apostles to not follow the traditions of men.
Colossians 2:8 “Beware that no one leads you away like a prize because of philosophy or empty, false statements, according to the traditions of men, after the elements of the world, and not after the Messiah!”
JUDAISM, AND WHAT IS REQUIRED TO BE A JEW
In today’s world we find that there are three major religions that many people are born into, or convert to: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. This is done by personal choice and each person has their own reasoning as to why they want to convert. I will focus on Judaism, because it is Judaism that is closest to our belief system of wearing the holy garments, in worship to Yahweh. Most sacred name organizations, utilize more of the Judaic teachings to prove their points concerning how to observe Yahweh’s Laws. Many of these groups think that the Jews are closer to the truth since they have an ancient observance and have passed down parts of the Hebrew heritage from generation to generation, to our present time.
At one time I thought the same thing! However, lately through research, I have found that Judaism is a mixture of history, interpretations, and traditions! Most aspects of what we would consider the Law of Yahweh, upon further research, is found to be traditions of the Rabbi’s/Elders, who have inserted their comments and interpretations into what we would consider the Pure Word of Yahweh. Two examples is the tallit, and the numbering of the Laws. Both of these as taught by Judaism, give us an impression that they are taken directly from the Law, however, when studied out, we find no reference to Yahweh saying He has 613 Laws, nor do we find in His Law that He says to tie tzitzits with 8 strings or 5 knots. Both of these teachings is Judaic traditions handed down to us by the ancient Rabbi’s. We will explore one of these traditions in our study of the Holy Garments in this letter. Now I am not condemning traditions as long as they don’t come from pagan religions and force the believer into thinking if they don’t follow them, they are sinning. I think it is important for us to examine interpretations of Judaism view of the Law. We need to consider that if we are going to follow traditions or interpretations from the Jewish rabbi’s, we must investigate their origins and if they aren’t scripturally accurate, then we must ask Yahweh for guidance and understanding so that we follow the closest to the truth as possible. The scriptures say to prove all things! This article is not intended to offend our Jewish brethren, but to point out that their interpretation of the the Law on Holy Garments, may not be the only design that can be worn, or necessarily the correct design. We intend to view this subject with an open mindset and let you the reader see into this subject without discriminating and seeing some of the history of other cultures.
So should we be following the traditions of the Rabbi’s? Should we be learning on how to be become a Good Jew? And most importantly, should we be following the Judaic teachings, that so many sacred name organizations follow? While Judaism, like Christianity, has some truths to it, we will find one doctrine that Judaism teaches, which should alarm any true believer of Yahweh. Let’s examine the conversion process that one has to go through in order to be a part of Judaism, and see the major warning sign, that anyone who is attempting to be a true called out one of Yahweh, should be fully aware of and consider when studying the teachings of the Rabbi’s.
CONSIDERING JUDAISM AND IT’S TEACHINGS
The conversion process begins when a person considers the possibility of becoming Jewish. The reasons why people become Jewish are varied. Many are involved in a romantic relationship with someone Jewish and wish to unite the family religiously. Others are on a spiritual search and learn about Judaism through such means as reading, hearing a lecture, attending a Jewish religious ceremony, visiting the land of Israel, and so on. Whatever the motivation, the first step in considering conversion is to explore Judaism. This early exploration might include discussing the subject with friends and family, taking out books and videos on Judaism, going online and studying it, or just thinking about whether conversion is the right choice.
FINDING A RABBI OR TEACHER
If, after the initial consideration, a person wishes to explore conversion more fully, the next step is to find a rabbi. This part of the process can be difficult for several reasons. Obviously, individual rabbis differ. Some devote more time than others to conversion candidates. Some adhere to an ancient tradition of turning away a candidate three times to test the candidate's sincerity. In general, though, rabbis are extremely dedicated people who are both intelligent and religiously sensitive. They are Judaism's gatekeepers. They decide who can enter into Judaism. Given their central importance to a potential convert, it makes sense for most people to visit several rabbis and several synagogues to look for a compatible match.
When people are looking for a rabbi, they check with friends and family for advice, or they contact a local board of rabbis or other Jewish group, the internet, or the local telephone directory. Sometimes they also contact the movements directly.
A second problem is that rabbis belong to different groupings or movements. The four major movements are Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, and Reform Judaism. It is important for potential candidates to understand the differences among these movement and choose which movement is right for them. When a person does see a rabbi, the rabbi can authoritatively answer questions about conversion. If the person has already decided to convert, the rabbi will probably ask a series of questions about that decision. Such questions might include some of these:
- Why do you want to convert?
- What is your religious background?
- What do you know about Judaism?
- Do you know the differences between Judaism and your birth religion?
- Were you pressured to convert?
- Are you willing to spend the necessary time studying to become Jewish?
- Are you willing to raise any children you might have as Jewish?
- Have you discussed this decision with your family?
- Do you have any questions about Judaism or conversion?
LEARNING JUDAISM
If a decision has been made to study Judaism, and a rabbi has agreed to oversee that studying, a person might not yet be fully sure that a conversion is right, but the initial steps of exploration will continue. Even those who don't ultimately convert generally find that studying Judaism is both interesting and helpful in their making a final decision about conversion. Converts study Judaism in a variety of ways. Some work directly with a rabbi, meeting regularly and fulfilling specific study assignments. Others attend formal Introduction to Judaism or conversion classes, often with their Jewish romantic partner. A typical course of study will include basic Jewish beliefs and religious practices, such as prayer services, the history of the Jewish people, the Jewish home, the Jewish holidays and life cycle, the Holocaust, and Israel, as well as other topics. The study of Hebrew is also included. The period of study varies greatly. In general, the range is from six months to a year, although there are variations. Many Gentiles preparing to marry someone Jewish go through this process early so as to get married in a Jewish ceremony. A marriage between someone born Jewish and someone who becomes Jewish is a Jewish marriage, not an intermarriage. If this is a crucial issue, plan to begin study well before a wedding. Usually during this study period, a rabbi will ask that the person begin practicing Judaism according to the understanding of the movement. This can be a worthwhile time to explore Judaism. For example, even if a person does not ultimately plan to keep kosher (observe Jewish ritual rules about food), it is valuable to explore the rules for keeping kosher during this period of study.
THE RELIGIOUS COURT
The Religious Court, or Bet Din, most often consists of three people, at least one of whom must be a rabbi. The Bet Din officially oversees the formal conversion. Individual rabbis will provide guidance about how the Bet Din works. Because it takes place after learning, one part of the appearance will be to determine the Jewish knowledge of the conversion candidate. There might, for example be a question about the meaning of the Jewish Sabbath or about the Jewish belief in one God. These questions are not meant to trap candidates. Obviously, candidates are nervous during such questioning, but in almost all cases the questions are simply meant to assess the sincerity of the candidate and to make sure the conversion was entered into freely. Often an oath of allegiance to the Jewish people is made.
Pay attention to the two underlined points in the above paragraph:
- the Jewish belief in One God
- an Oath of Alligiance to the Jewish people
These two points are somethings that the average person never considers when studying Judaism, or the teachings of the Rabbi’s. I have heard many believers tell me how great a resource we have in the teachings of the Jewish Rabbi’s. Some consider Rabbi Rashi, Maimonides, and Eleazar, as some of the most influential Rabbi’s in the past 1000 years. Many use their interpretation of the Law as their basis of understanding concerning some of the Laws of Yahweh. Now, while it is not my intentions to condemn any Rabbi or teacher of the Law, there is one thing these Rabbi’s and every Rabbi who is Jewish have in common. It is part of their Judaic Religious belief. Their belief in One Creator is accurate, but they have been in opposition to Christianity because they exalt Jesus to God-like status. This is where they have missed the whole concept of Yahshua our Messiah. Before we address this issure, let’s look at their Oath of Alligiance to be Jewish.
OATH OF ALLEGIANCE
The word “Jewish,” it is argued, signifies so many different things to different people that it is meaningless to ask anyone to swear allegiance to what it represents. Does it refer to a religion? A people? An endogamous biological community? A system of values? A common destiny? To what exactly, it is asked, would the takers of such a loyalty oath be declaring their loyalty?
Here, too, of course, we are dealing with larger issues that go far beyond the proposed oath itself. The question of what is “Jewish,” or of who or what is a “Jew,” has been a contentious one for a long time now — so long, we sometimes forget that for an even longer time before that, it was not disputed at all. Until modern times, indeed, although there may have been different ideas about what being a “Jew” or “Jewish” ideally should be, hardly anyone disagreed about what the words meant in practice. A Jew was a member of a Jewish community, and Jewish communities all over the world were clearly defined entities both in their own eyes and in the eyes of non-Jews. Being Jewish meant belonging to a religion and to a people and to a biological community and sharing certain values and having a common destiny. None of these things was thought of as being inconsistent with any of the others.
Israel's character as a "Jewish state" also introduces a religious element to the definition of "Jewish and democratic," since entry into the Jewish people is through conversion. Requiring an oath of allegiance to a Jewish and democratic state may thus present an obstacle when non-Jews seek citizenship. The oath of allegiance, could prevent Righteous Gentiles from receiving Israeli citizenship. Many people in Israel feel a person must not be forced to take an oath of allegiance – even indirectly – to a particular ideological outlook, religion, or nationality as a condition for becoming a citizen. It is enough to pledge allegiance to the state.
TO BE A JEW AND RECOGNIZED AS SUCH, ONE MUST REJECT THE ONE SENT, YAHSHUA MESSIAH
Please notice that to be a Jew in Israel, one must be allied to the religion of the Jewish people. That religion is Judaism. So what is the danger of being Jewish or studying the teachings of Rabbi’s? One of the tenets of being Jewish or to convert to Judaism is that you have to reject Yahshua as the Messiah! Now ask yourself, should we as true believers of Yahweh be studying the writings of Rabbi’s and their teachings, knowing that they reject Yahshua as the Messiah? Can you consider their teachings as inspiration from Yahweh and that they had the Holy Spirit of Yahweh, when interpreting the Law? How could they be considered inspired by Yahweh, if they have rejected the ONE SENT, by Yahweh who brings salvation to mankind? This is one reason as a believer, I have made every attempt to not use any commentaries or writings of any of these teachers in my understanding or interpretations of the Laws of Yahweh, or my explanation concerning them. How could I or any true believer follow someones teachings, when they outright reject Yahshua as the Messiah? This would make them anti-Messiah and me a follower of their belief! We are warned about such teachers!
Isayah 43:27 “Your first father hath sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me.”
I Timayah 1:7 “Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.”
II Timayah 4:3 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”
II Kepha 2:1 “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who craftily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Master/Teacher, that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”
Yeremyah 8:8 “How can we say we are wise and the Law of Yahweh is with us? Behold, surely the deceptive and false pen of the scribes have deceived us; the wise men are ashamed (dried up, no water), they are dismayed, and caught in a trap, for they have rejected the word of Yahweh and what wisdom is in them?
Kepha described the Rabbi’s teachings as bringing in damnable heresies, and bringing swift destruction upon themselves as well as those who follow their teachings. The Prophet Yeremyah says that they have rejected the word of Yahweh and have deceived us with their false pen, their writings and are caught in a trap! So do we believe these words of those who we know were inspired by Yahweh or will we follow, or allow ourselves to be taught by those who reject the word of Yahweh, by rejecting His Son? If they reject Yahshua as Messiah, they reject the Law of Yahweh that foretold of Him, and reject the Law of Yahweh as a whole!
Hosheyah 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall not minister as a priest to me: seeing you have forgotten the Law of your Mighty Judge, I will also forget your children (rabbi’s).”
I Yahchanan 2:22 “Who is a liar but he that denies that Yahshua is the Messiah? He is an adversary of the Messiah, that denies the founder of the family and the founders descendants, called the Sons of Abraham.”
The fleshly Jews today call themselves the children of Abraham, according to the flesh. But they have lost the teachings of Abraham, by following traditions. Those who have the Spirit of Yahweh are spiritual in every sense of the word, true sons of Abraham, who are not children according to the flesh, trying to please the flesh, but are according to the Spirit, trying to please Yahweh! So the builder of the House, which is Yahweh, is greater than the House!
Hebrews 3:1-4 “Therefore, Holy brethren, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Yahshua, the Apostle and High Priest whom we confess. He was faithful to the one who appointed Him, just as Mosheh was faithful all in Yahweh’s House. Yahshua has been found worthy of greater honor than Mosheh, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but Yahweh is the builder of everything.”
Hebrews 11:10 “For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is Yahweh.”
YAHSHUA MESSIAH THE FIRST HOUSE OF YAHWEH, A HOUSE BUILT WITHOUT HANDS
Yahweh built the first House of Yahweh, called Yahshua Messiah. This House once established, was set as a pattern for us on how to build our House of Yahweh. It is not a physical building, but a House built without hands. In order to build it, we need to have righteous teachings, not teachings from those who reject the plans. Think about this, as you consider this study and the next time you pick up a Commentary from a Rabbi!
Isayah 2:2 “And it shall come to pass in the last 319 days 3117, [that] the mountain 2022 of the LORD'S 3068 house 1004 shall be established 3559 in the top 7218 of the mountains 2022, and shall be exalted 5375 above the hills 1389; and all nations 1471 shall flow 5102 unto it.”
The word last is word #319 and means: after part, end; latter part, extreme part; end, issue, event; latter time (prophetic for future time); posterity; last, hindermost
The word days is word #3117 and means: day, time, year.
The word mountain is word #2022 and means: hill, mountain, hill country, mount; the holy mountain of Yahweh; a mountain tract of country.
The word Lord’s is word #3068 and means: Yahweh
The word house is word #1004 and means: house, dwelling habitation; house as containing a family; household, family; those belonging to the same household; family of descendants, descendants as organized body. From #1129 and means: rebuild, establish, to build a house (ie. establish a family).
The word established is word #3559 and means: to be set up, be established, be fixed; to be firmly established; to constitute, appoint; to be prepared, to be founded.
The word top is word #7218 and means: head, top, summit, upper part, chief, total, sum, height, front, beginning; chief, head (of man, city, nation, place, family, priest); chief, choicest, best.
The word exalted is word #5375 and means: to lift, bear up, carry, take; to be taken away, be carried off, be swept away;
The word hills is word #1389 and means: hill (lower than a mountain); as a place of illicit worship.
The word nations is word #1471 and means: nation, a people; usually of non-Hebrew people; of descendants of Abraham; a confluence of men, body corpus.
The word flow is word #5102 and means: to shine, beam, light, burn; to shine; to give light, to be glad, rejoice.
In Micahyah 4:1 the word people is used in place of nations, as mentioned in Isayah 2:2. This word people is word #5971 and means: people; members of ones people; countrymen, kindred, relatives; the tribes of Israyl.
So we can see that Isayah 2:2 has the meaning:
“And it shall come to pass in latter part of days, that the Holy mountain of Yahweh’s House, those belonging to the same family, descendants as an organized body, shall be established, set up, constituted, to be founded in the beginning, by head of man, chief priest, of the Holy Mountain of Yahweh, and shall be lifted up, bear up, to be taken away, above the place of illicit worship, and all people of non-Hebrew and descendants of Abraham; a confluence of men, the tribes of Israel, shall shine, burn, to give light, be glad, and rejoice unto it.”
Yahshua Messiah is the light unto the world. He became the first House built without hands. He was an example unto us and because He was the first perfected of Yahweh, He became the Head over mankind. He also became the High Priest over the House of Yahweh. He is our salvation! No one will ever take His position, nor will Yahweh allow anyone to take this authority. He is the greatest teacher of the Torah! He was not God in the Flesh! This is why Judaism has stumbled for so long! If they had stood in Yahweh’s counsel, they would have understood the ONE SENT for salvation. They would have understood that at His first coming, He was not here to rule in the flesh, establishing a fleshly Kingdom. He came to establish a spiritual Kingdom, consisting of spiritual brothers and sisters. Why would Yahweh have the need to send His Son to fight a fleshly Kingdom and war against it? Mankind does that quite well on their own. Yahweh could just wipe us all out and start over again, if He wanted to! He sent Yahshua Messiah to show mankind that it is possible to achieve perfection in the flesh, through His Laws, and prove that we can withstand evil. Yahshua only had the Laws to guide Him. He wasn’t saved by grace or by himself. He kept the Laws so that through the Laws, we could understand the difference between righteousness and evil. For anyone to believe otherwise, they should stop reading this article because it will not benefit them, if they can’t get this simple instruction!
JUDAISM’S VIEW OF YAHSHUA MESSIAH
The following information was taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism%27s_view_of_Jesus
Jews have traditionally seen Jesus as one of a number of false messiahs who have appeared throughout history. Jesus is viewed as having been the most influential, and consequently the most damaging, of all false messiahs. However, since the general Jewish belief is that the Messiah has not yet come and that the Messianic Age is not yet present, the total rejection of Jesus as either messiah or deity in Judaism has never been a central issue for Judaism. At the heart of Judaism are the Torah, its commandments, the Tanakh, and ethical monotheism such as in the Shema — all of which predated Jesus. (Editors note: If they understood who Yahshua was, they would realize that the Torah wrote about Him, thereby not predating Him. Even Abraham understood the need for Messiah)
Judaism has never accepted any of the claimed fulfilments of prophecy that Christianity attributes to Jesus. Judaism also forbids the worship of a person as a form of idolatry, since the central belief of Judaism is the absolute unity and singularity of God.
Jewish eschatology holds that the coming of the Messiah will be associated with a specific series of events that have not yet occurred, including the return of Jews to their homeland and the rebuilding of The Temple, a Messianic Age of peace and understanding during which "the knowledge of God" fills the earth, and since Judaism holds that none of these events occurred during the lifetime of Jesus (nor have they occurred afterwards), he is not a candidate for messiah.
Fundamentally, Judaism believes that God, as the creator of time, space, energy and matter, is beyond them, and cannot be born or die, or literally have a son. Judaism teaches that it is heretical for any man to claim to be God, part of God, or the literal son of God. The Jerusalem Talmud (Ta'anit 2:1) states explicitly: "if a man claims to be God, he is a liar."
Please notice the following points about Judaism’s view of Yahshua the Messiah, that has them not believing that Yahshua is the True Messiah.
- they believe Yahshua is a false messiah
- the heart of Judaism is the torah, it’s commandments, the Tanakh, and monotheism
- Judaism doesn’t accept Christianities prophecy fulfillments of Yahshua
- Judaism forbids worship of a person, and believe Yahweh to be one.
Now these points should be addressed. First we know that Yahshua is not a false messiah, as He fulfilled the Laws concerning what the messiah would do and be. Second, Yahshua never condemned the Law, torah and the fact that Yahweh is One! Lastly, Yahshua said that He didn’t come in His Name and never wanted worship! So we can see that Judaism’s slant against Yahshua is based on Christian teachings or Christianities view of the Messiah! However, in these last days, they still reject the true teachings of Yahshua Messiah, that is given to them by many of the true believers.
TRUE BELIEVERS VIEW OF YAHSHUA MESSIAH
Here is our belief system concerning Yahshua Messiah:
- Yahshua is the Head/High Priest over man
- Yahshua is the Messiah, or anointed one, sent by Yahweh
- Yahshua is the Son of Yahweh, and was a human being with flesh and blood, just as we are. As a Son, he proved that we are Sons of Yahweh if we walk as He walked.
- Yahshua is not a pre-existent god, nor is He Yahweh in the flesh.
- Yahshua kept the Law, taught the Torah, and brought forth it’s teachings.
- Yahshua fulfilled the prophecies concerning the ONE SENT by Yahweh, who would be the ratification of the Blood Covenant.
- Yahshua said to not worship Him, but to worship Yahweh, who is the standard of perfection.
So why is it that Judaism, would condemn the true believers of Yahweh? Well, maybe we need to present them with the truth, so that they can repent of their religion, which like most religion is built upon man made traditions, and follow the truth! As you read above, they are still thinking in the flesh! They are looking for a physical building, (Temple) built with hands, looking to return to a homeland that is not here on earth, but above, and looking for peace and understanding, yet rejecting the one who taught these principles. Trying to accomplish this, while they are at constant war with their neighbors, who may be their brothers. They also cannot understand the principle that Yahweh is building a family, and that we are His Sons! Now I am not condemning them, only pointing out that those who think in the flesh, can only understand the things of the flesh. Those who think in the Spirit, will understand the things from on high given by the Spirit of Yahweh. We must remember that Judaism rejects Yahshua Messiah. It will be our job to teach them who the real Yahshua Messiah was and is! As we put these Laws together for the Tribes of Israel, the real lost tribes is those of Judah, who are called Jews, and it is my prayer that they will come to understanding of Yahweh’s true revealing of His Laws. And it is my prayer that they will accept the true Messiah, Yahshua, who brings salvation to mankind.
There are some who will find this teaching on the Holy Garments offensive because they have been taught to follow a certain way for most of their life. Or maybe they will defend their Rabbi, as the great teacher, and will reject the truth of Yahweh. I cannot make anyone understand Yahweh’s truth, only preach what Yahweh inspires me to write as Yahshua reveals the understanding to me, and I relay it to you, the reader. I can only say that if you can prove it wrong, then correct it and follow truth! If this helps you study, then Praise Yahweh. Whether you prove it right or wrong, as long as it gets you off your rear end and study, then I have accomplished something worth mentioning! That is what we are all required to do. I am not an expert on the Hebrew, Greek, or even the English language. But I do have a sincere desire to follow Yahweh’s Laws, and will attempt to only write what Yahweh reveals to me to be Truth! I know that I have been called out by Yahweh to do the work of a minister, and I will continue to do it. Don’t follow me, follow the Greatest Teacher in the World, Yahshua Messiah!
Many Rabbi’s have attempted to bring understanding on what they see as the correct interpretation of Numbers 15:38 and Deuteronomy 22:12, concerning the Holy Garments. There are millions of followers who wear the Tallit as described in the above mentioned articles describing the Tallit’s history. So are these millions of devoted worshippers wrong? No! It is not the editors intention to condemn anyone’s belief system or their traditions. I will do my best to explain according to the Law and the Prophets as to what this Garment with fringes on the borders is, and the purpose for the true believers wearing of it. There have been many books written about it, and most take the teachings, or customs from the East, (Rabbinical/Judaic teachings) in their approach to it’s understanding. We will think outside the box, and stay away from the teachings of men, who we have proved were not inspired by Yahweh’s Holy Spirit, and let the scriptures interpret the scriptures! May Yahweh bless your understanding of this Law of Yahweh.
In my 20+ years of wearing the Tallit, I followed the teachings as taught to me by a Rabbi, who I believed to have the understanding of being inspired by Yahweh. It wasn’t until I read other writings and the origins of the Tallit’s Jewish tradition, that I became aware that the Rabbi/Teacher I had followed, did not reveal to me any new understanding, or inspiration, from the Law of Yahweh. But instead, followed the traditions of the Jewish Rabbi’s from the East! We are warned about such practices as foretold by the prophet Isayah.
Isayah 2:6 “You, O Yahweh, have forsaken Your people, the house of Yaaqob, because they are filled with customs from the east, they are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they are pleased in the children of strangers.”
When this was written in the land called Israel, the east would have been in a land other than Israel. So let us see what Isayah was speaking about. Let’s examine the Philistines religious beliefs and the religions of the East.
THE EASTERN RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS, CUSTOMS FROM THE EAST
Dagon was the principal deity of the Philistines, whose ancestors migrated to Palestinian shores from Crete. He was the god of fertility and crops. Dagon also figured prominently in the Philistine concepts of death and the afterlife. In addition to his role in the religion of the Philistines, Dagon was worshipped in the more general society of Canaanite peoples.
Some years after the arrival of the Minoan forefathers of the Philistines, the immigrants adopted elements of Canaanite religion. Eventually the primary religious focus shifted. The worship of the Great Mother, the original religion of the Philistines, was traded for the paying of homage to the Canaanite deity, Dagon.
Within the Canaanite pantheon, Dagon seems to have been second only to El in power. He was one of four sons born to Anu. Dagon was also the father of Baal. Among the Canaanites, Baal eventually assumed the position of god of fertility, which Dagon had previously occupied. Dagon was sometimes associated with the half fish female deity Derceto (which may account for the theory of Dagon being portrayed as half fish). Little else is known of Dagon's place in the Canaanite pantheon, but his role in Philistine religion as primary deity is quite evident. It is known, however, that the Canaanites imported Dagon from Babylonia.
We can see that the Philistines/Canaanites worshiped Dagon, who was the father of Baal and second only to El. What is interesting to see is that the Canaanites imported Dagon from Babylon! Let’s examine the Babylonians in their beliefs! Babylon is located East of Israel.
Babylonian mythology is a set of stories depicting the activities of Babylonian deities, heroes, and mythological creatures. These stories served many social, political, ceremonial purposes, and at times tried to explain natural phenomena. Babylonian mythology and religion was largely centered around civilization.
Babylonian mythology was greatly influenced by their Sumerian counterparts, and was written on clay tablets inscribed with the cuneiform script derived from Sumerian cuneiform. The myths were usually either written in Sumerian or Akkadian. Some Babylonian texts were even translations into Akkadian from the Sumerian language of earlier texts, though the names of some deities were changed in Babylonian texts. Many of the stories of the Tanakh, are believed to have been based on, influenced by, or inspired by the legendary mythological past of the Near East.
So we see that Babylonian religion was greatly influenced by their Sumerian counterparts. Let’s examine Sumerian beliefs.
The Sumerians originally practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic deities representing cosmic and terrestrial forces in their world. During the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE, Sumerian deities became more anthrocentric and were "...nature gods transformed into city gods." Gods like Enki and Inanna were viewed as having been assigned their rank, power and knowledge from An, the heaven deity, or Enlil, head of the Sumerian pantheon.
This cosmological shift may have been caused by the growing influence of the neighboring Akkadian religion, or as a result of increased warfare between the Sumerian city-states; the assignment of certain powers to deities may have mirrored the appointment of the Lugals, who were given power and authority by the city-state and its priesthood.
Until the advent of the Lugals, Sumerian city states were under a virtually complete theocratic government controlled by independent groups of En, or high priest. Priests were responsible for continuing the cultural and religious traditions of their city-state, and were viewed as mediums between humans and the cosmic and terrestrial forces. The priesthood resided full-time in temple complexes, and administered to matters of state including the large irrigation processes necessary for the civilization’s survival.
So we can see that the Babylonian and Sumerian religions, had established Priesthoods. The Priests were responsible for the the religious traditions transferred to the people in each city/state. Reading from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 10 page 285 we find the following information concerning the Babylonian/Sumerians Priestly Garments:
“The priests clothing and the perfection of their persons. Though the priests shown in the early cylinder seals wear dresses practically identical a fringed cloak reaching to the feet leaving the right arm uncovered and therefore free with bare feet and generally shaven head there seems to be no doubt that distinctive clothing was worn. Thus the British Museum letter K 626 RF Harper Assyrian and Babylonian Letters Chicago 1910 no 24 describes the maSmaSu as wearing a red robe and a mitre of the same colour Behrens Assyrisch babylonische Brief e kultischen Inhalts Details as to priestly clothing are meagre but apparently the right garments had to be used or the ceremony would be a failure.”
Another bit of information concerning Greek/Dorian dress, from this same Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 7, page 233 we find:
“xii Greek Costume All articles of Greek costume belong either to the class of kv& na Ta more or less close fitting sewn garments or of Trepi SXij uara loose pieces of stuff draped round the body in various ways and fastened with pins or brooches. For the former class the generic name is xirkv a word of Semitic origin which denotes the Eastern origin of the garment for the latter we find in Homer and early poetry jre7rXos in later times Iixb Ttov. The 7r rXos also called lavbs and cj S pos in Homer was the sole indispensable article of dress in early Greece and as it was always retained as such by the women in Dorian states is often called the Doric dress t0j s Atopts. It was a square piece of woollen stuff about a foot longer than the height of the wearer and equal in breadth to twice the span of the arms measured from wrist to wrist.” (sorry the greek letters didn’t print correctly)
Doesn’t this sound very similiar to the Tallit Gadol, worn by the Jews and Messianic Churches today? They wear a rectangular garment over their clothes when praying, on Sabbath, and at Religous Festivals. The Jews Tallit Gadol was a garment made of wool, silk, cotton, or polyester. Some Messianic Churches only use linen, but they all are wearing something that is not described in scripture, but can be found in many other nations religions! In fact, the above article states that these garments are of Eastern origin, just as the Prophet Isayah condemned the children of Israel for following. Continuing reading from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 7, page 234:
“Thucydides i 6 tells us that in his own time the linen chiton of Ionia had again been discarded in favour of the Doric dress and the monuments show that after the Persian wars a reaction against Orientalism showed itself in a return to simpler fashions. The long linen chiton which had been worn by men as well as women was now only retained by the male sex on religious and festival occasions a short chiton was however worn at work or in active exercise Greek Art fig 3 and often fastened on the left shoulder. IV Etruscan Costume: The female dress of the Etruscans did not differ in any important respect from that of the Greeks: it consisted of the chiton and himation, which was in earlier times usually worn as a shawl, not after the fashion of the Doric.”
As we read earlier, the Rabbi’s disagree on whether women can wear the Tallit. We can see that the Greeks had the same discussions and they, like some Rabbi’s, forbid the women to wear certain religious garments. Can you see the influence of the nations on the Hebrew’s thought process concerning Yahweh’s Laws? That is why we must follow Yahweh and understand the meanings of what He is revealing to us in His Laws. Reading further concerning the Romans customs, on page 235 we find:
“The tunica was precisely like the Greek chiton; that of the senator had two broad stripes of purple latus clavus down the centre that of the knight two narrow stripes angustus clavus. A woollen undergarment subucula was often worn by men; the women's under tunic was of linen indusium. When women gave up the use of the toga they adopted the stola; a long tunic with a border of a darker colour, inslita, along the lower edge the neck also sometimes had a border patagium. The tunic with long sleeves, tunica mankata, was a later fashion. Over this the, ricinium, or rica, a shawl, covering the head and shoulders was worn in early times and retained by certain priestesses as an official costume, but it gave place to the palla the equivalent of the Greek, himation and the dress of the Roman women henceforward differed in no essential particular from that of the Greek.”
We can see the garment that the Roman Priestesses wore is very similiar to the garment that every Jew and Messianic Church wears today! Could this garment that is worn today be a descendant from these pagan Nations? Isayah preached against the customs of the East and condemned the children of Israel from following the practices of the Eastern Religions and the Nations that were around them. I am not saying that it is pagan to wear a garment over your garments, or to wear anything that is described above. What is being pointed out is that we don’t have any specific details as to how the garment was to be made or worn. It appears that the Jewish garment is very close in detail to the Babylonian/Sumerian religious garment.
The Encyclopedia Judaica gives the following information concerning the Tallit:
TALLIT (Heb. TyZt, pl. tallitot; Yid. tales, pl. talesim), prayer shawl. Originally the word meant "gown" or "cloak." This was a rectangular mantle that looked like a blanket and was worn by men in ancient times. At the four corners of the tallit tassels were attached in fulfillment of the biblical commandment of zizit (Num. 15:38–41). The tallit was usually made either of wool or of linen (Men. 39b) and probably resembled the abbayah ("blanket") still worn by Bedouin for protection against the weather. The tallit made of finer quality was similar to the Roman pallium and was worn mostly by the wealthy and by distinguished rabbis and scholars (BB 98a). The length of the mantle was to be a handbreadth shorter than that of the garment under it (BB 57b). After the exile of the Jews from Erez Israel and their dispersion, they came to adopt the fashions of their gentile neighbors more readily. The tallit was discarded as a daily habit and it became a religious garment for prayer; hence its later meaning of prayer shawl. The tallit is usually white and made either of wool, cotton, or silk, although Maimonides and Alfasi objected to the use of the latter. Strictly observant Jews prefer tallitot made of coarse half-bleached lamb's wool. In remembrance of the blue thread of the zizit (see tekhelet), most tallitot have several blue stripes woven into the white material (see Zohar, Num. 227a). Until recently, however, they only had black stripes. The minimum size of a tallit is that which would suffice to clothe a small child able to walk (Sh. Ar., OH 16:1).
Reading from, http://www.judaic.com/judaism/tallit-historical.html we find the following:
“There is much confusion among the masses as to the origins of the tallit. The actual four-cornered garment began with no relevance whatsoever to Jewish practice. Beginning when Moses received the Torah on Mount Sinai, all of Israel were commanded to place tzitzit on the corners of their four-cornered garments. (Numbers 15:37-41 and Commandment 376 out of 613 in the Sefer HaChinuch ISBN 0-87306-605-7). The purpose of such a commandment, as given by the verses in Numbers, is so that the people of Israel should glance at the strings and remember all of the commandments of God.
Most people at the time (both Jews as well as non-Jews) wore clothing that bears little resemblance to modern apparel. Most clothing consisted of a sheet-like item wrapped around the body following the local customs of the time. This can perhaps be compared to the "'abayah," or blanket, worn by the Bedouins for protection from sun and rain, or the stola/toga of ancient Greece and Rome. As sheets, these garments had four corners and were thus subsequently (from Sinai, onwards) required to possess these tzitzis. As recorded in the Talmud, these were sometimes worn partly doubled, and sometimes with the ends thrown over the shoulders (Shabbos 147a; Menachos 41a).
As modern day dawned and people began wearing the apparel with which we are all quite familiar (shirts and slacks, etc.), the four-cornered sheet-like cloth fell out of style and practicality, and to this end, the Biblical commandment to attach tzitzis to one's garments effectively became obsolete. However, in a demonstration of love for the Almighty and their desire to keep His commandments, the Rabbis ordained that Jews should purposely wear four-cornered garments to necessitate the attachment of the tzitzis.”
Reading from, http://www.tallit-shop.com/tallit-tefillin-blog/tallis/history-of-yemenite-tallith/ we find the following:
In our day, the use of the tallit is largely confined to times of prayer.
Jewish sources indicate that the tallit was originally made of wool and that the person wearing it might treat it as an ordinary garment for various purposes – bundling up his wares in it or using it to cover himself or the bed he was lying on. Based on a responsum written by the Rambam it appears that the custom during his time was to wear a tallit throughout the day.
Meanwhile Rabbi Petachia of Regensburg, who visited the East in the 12th century, reveals that the Jews of Baghdad “go about in shawls and wrapped up in a tallit of wool, with tzitzits.” According to Dr. Aaron Gimani of Bar-Ilan University, the restriction of the tallit to the morning prayers and the development of the tallit katan evolved as Jews began to adopt more mainstream social mores.
Notice that the tallit was similiar to the Roman pallium. Also we find in these articles about the Tallit, the Jewish people tended to adopt the fashions of their gentile neighbors. We see that Rabbi Petachia, who visited the EAST in the 12th century, saw Jews of Baghdad, wearing the Tallit, which is like the one they wear today.
This has been a habit of most people, especially our Jewish brethren, who were conquered and dispersed into the nations around them. We tend to adapt many things from the culture around us. In today’s world everyone is influenced by the fashions, culture, and influence of mainstream medias programming on our intellect and our choice of fashion. It was no different to our Jewish brethren in the past, as they were assimilated into the cultures around them and influenced by them, they imitated the customs of these nations, which included their fashions. The wearing of the Tallit garment today, is one that was ordained and designed by the Jewish Rabbi’s, not Yahweh, so we should make every effort to find out what Yahweh defines in His Law!
WHAT DID IT MEAN TO WEAR THE FRINGES IN ANCIENT CULTURE
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In many ancient cultures fringes were a well-known style of dress rich with meaning.
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Assyrians and Babylonians believed that fringes assured the wearer of the protection of the gods.
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The fringed hem was ornate in comparison with the rest of the outer robe and frequently had tassels along the edges. This ornate hem was a "symbolic extension of the owner and more specifically of the owner's rank and authority. "
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Requests accompanied by grasping the fringes of the one from whom you wanted something could not be refused.
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Exorcists used the hem of a patient's garment in their healing ceremonies.
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A husband could divorce his wife by cutting off the hem of his wife's robe.
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In Mari, an ancient city in what is now Syria, a professional prophet or diviner would enclose with his report to the King a lock of his hair and a piece of his hem....Sometimes the hem was impressed on a clay tablet as a kind of signature.
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Fringes could also be pressed onto the clay instead of the hem. E.A.Speiser has suggested that when we press the corner fringe of the tallit to the Torah scroll we are reflecting this ancient custom.
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The primary significance of the tassel in ancient times was that it was worn only by those who counted; it was the "I.D. of the nobility."
In an article by Jacob Milgrom in BAR magazine dated May/June 1983 we find the following information concerning the tassels and hem of the garment during ancient times:
To understand the significance of the tassel, we must first understand the significance of the hem. The hem of an ancient Near Eastern garment was not simply a fold sewed to prevent the threads of the cloth from unraveling. The hem of the outer garment or robe made an important social statement. It was usually the most ornate part of the garment. And the more important the individual, the more elaborate and the more ornate was the embroidery on the hem of his or her outer robe. The tassel must be understood as an extension of such a hem.
Extra-Biblical texts teach us that the ornate hem was considered a symbolic extension of the owner himself and more specifically of his rank and authority.
In Mesopotamia we find early Akkadian texts (for example, in 18th-century Mari) which frequently use the phrase “to cut off the hem” (sisikta bataqu). When the hem is cut off, a part of the person’s personality is removed. In exorcising an evil spirit, the exorcist cuts off the hem of the garment worn by the person invaded by the evil spirit; the exorcist then pronounces an incantation over his patient’s detached hem. In a Mesopotamian divorce, the husband effects the divorce by cutting off the hem of his wife’s robe.
The significance of the hem and of its being cut off is reflected in a famous Biblical episode. When the young and future king, David, fled from the jealous wrath of King Shaul, Shaul pursued David into the Judean wilderness near the Dead Sea. Weary from his pursuit, Shaul went into one of the caves near the spring at Ein Gedi to relieve himself, unaware that David and his men were hiding in that very cave. David’s men urged him to kill the unsuspecting Shaul. Instead, David cut the hem of Shaul’s cloak to prove that he could easily have killed Shaul if he had wanted to, but that he would not harm the Lord’s anointed. The passage has a deeper significance, however—in some ways the opposite significance. The hem that David cut off was an extension of Saul’s person and authority. David did in fact harm Yahweh’s anointed; that is why David immediately felt remorse for what he had done: “Afterward David reproached himself for having cut off the hem of Shaul’s cloak”
I Samuel 24:6 “And he said unto his men, Yahweh forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, Yahweh’s anointed, to stretch forth my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of Yahweh.”
According to the New English Bible translation, David’s “conscience smote him.”
I Samuel 24:5 “And it came to pass afterward, that David’s heart smote him, because he had cut off Shaul’s skirt.”
The word smote is #5221 and means: to strike, to smitten, beat, hit.
The word skirt is #3671 and means: wing, corner, border. edge, extremity.
We can see that David had his heart smitten. Anyone who has experienced fear or excitement, can testify of the adrenalin that is released when someone gets excited. This is what David felt and with remorse because he knew what he had done was irreversible, but he also knew that he had symbolically cut out King Shaul’s kingdom from him.
Although protesting that he had not lifted a finger or a hand against Yahweh’s anointed (1 Samuel 24:10), David had in fact committed a symbolic act—cutting off Shaul’s hem—of enormous significance. This significance was not lost on King Shaul; he understood full well:
I Samuyl 24:20 “Now I know that you will become king.”
The legal significance of the hem is frequently demonstrated in the famous archive of cuneiform tablets found at Mari in present-day Syria near the border of Iraq. In Mari, a professional prophet or diviner would enclose with his report to the king a lock of his hair and a piece of his hem. Both the hair and the hem served to identify the prophet, but more important, the piece of hem served to guarantee that the prediction was true. Sometimes the hem was impressed on the clay tablet as a kind of signature. Today, a person who cannot write sometimes “signs his name” by impressing his fingerprints on the document; in ancient Mesopotamia, a member of the upper class sometimes “signed his name” by impressing part of his hem on a clay tablet to insure its authenticity.
We now have a short history of the tallit, tzitzit, tassels or fringes, and hems/borders of the garments of ancient civilized nations and their design. We can see that many nations and their Priests had holy garments, and their design appears to be very close to the tallit that the Jewish people wear today. We have seen that the Jewish people absorbed the culture around them. So is this a coincidence only, or is there scriptural proof to show that the Tallit worn today is not the same as the one described in the Law of Yahweh. We will examine the words and scriptures more in detail to find out. We will also search one more group of people, of the Hebrew nation, that has been lost to the Jewish culture and history of the people in the Middle East.
THE DISPERSED TRIBES OF ISRAEL
Before we get into our study of the words in the Law of the Holy Garments, we need to examine the dispersed, or as some refer to as the lost tribes of Israel, who have been forgotten in the pages of our Hebraic history. We need to remember that those who today are called Jews, would be from the tribe of Yahdah or Kingdom of Yahdah, which only consisted of two tribes, Yahdah and Benyamin. That is only two tribes. The children of Israel had 12 tribes.
Genesis 49:28 “All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this [is it] that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.”
- Reuben
- Simeon
- Levi
- Judah
- Issachar
- Zebulun
- Dan
- Naphtali
- Gad
- Asher
- Joseph
- Benjamin
History shows us that after the death of King Solomon, the Kingdom was split into two Kingdoms. The Southern Kingdom had two tribes, and the Northern Kingdom had 10 tribes. Reading from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes we find the following information:
The Kingdom of Israel (or Northern Kingdom) was one of the successor states to the older United Monarchy (also called the Kingdom of Israel), which came into existence in about the 930s BC after the northern Tribes of Israel rejected Solomon's son Rehoboam as their king. Nine landed tribes formed the Northern Kingdom: the tribes of Reuben, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim and Manasseh. In addition, some members of Tribe of Levi, who had no land allocation, were found in the Northern Kingdom. The Tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to Rehoboam, and formed the Kingdom of Judah (or Southern Kingdom). Members of Levi and the remnant of Simeon were also found in the Southern Kingdom.
The Hebrew Bible does not use the phrase "Ten Lost Tribes", leading some to question the actual number of tribes involved. However, 1 Kings 11:31 states that Yahweh will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and give ten tribes to Jeroboam:
I Kings 11:31 “And he said to Jeroboam, Take you ten pieces: for thus saith Yahweh, the Mighty Judge of Israel, Behold, I will remove the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to you.”
I Kings 11:35 “But I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and will give it unto you, even ten tribes.”
However, it is not clear which tribes should be counted as dispersed. Dispersed tribes are those that formed the northern Kingdom of Israel after the dissolution of the united Kingdom of Israel in c. 930 BC. The tribes of Reuben, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim, and Manasseh were parts of the northern kingdom, a total of nine.
It has sometimes been said that the Tribe of Simeon was a part of the northern Kingdom of Israel and was therefore part of the "Ten Lost Tribes." However, the Tribe of Simeon was never located in the Northern Kingdom, but was located entirely within the land of Judah. (Joshua 19:1) In addition, the territory of the tribe of Benjamin was part of the kingdom of Judah at the time of the Babylonian Exile and after, and the tribe of Levi continued to serve in the Second Temple in Yerusalem after the Exile, making four tribes (Judah, Simeon, Benjamin and Levi) who were not actually "dispersed".
The concept of the "Ten Lost Tribes" originally began in a religious context, based on Biblical sources, not as an ethnological idea. Some scientists have researched the topic, and at various times some have made claims of empirical evidence of the Ten Lost Tribes. However, religious and scriptural sources remain the main sources of the belief that the Ten Lost Tribes have some continuing, though hidden, identity somewhere.
There are numerous references in Biblical writings. In Yechetzqyah 37:16-17, the prophet is told to write on one stick (an ancient reference to scrolls) (quoted here in part) "For Yahdah..." and on the other (quoted here in part) , "For Yahseph..." (the main Lost Tribe). The prophet is then told that these two groups shall be someday reunited.
Yechetzqyah 37:16,17 “Moreover, thou son of man, take you one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Yahseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in your hand.”
17th to 20th Century Theories of the Dispersed Tribes
The Portuguese traveller Antonio de Montezinos brought back reports that some of the Lost Tribes were living among the Native Americans of the Andes in South America. In response to this, Manasseh ben Israel, a noted rabbi of Amsterdam, wrote on December 23, 1649:
“... I think that the Ten Tribes live not only there ... but also in other lands scattered everywhere; these never did come back to the Second Temple and they keep till this day still the Jewish Religion …”
Antonio de Montezinos was a Portuguese traveler and a Marrano Sephardic Jew who in 1644 persuaded Menasseh Ben Israel, a rabbi of Amsterdam, that he had found one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel living in the jungles of the "Quito Province" (that is, the Pichincha Province) of Ecuador. This supposed discovery gave a new impulse to Menasseh's Messianic hopes. Menasseh wrote a book about this narrative, The Hope of Israel. In it Menasseh argued, and for the first time tried to give scholarly support in European thought and printing to the theory that the native inhabitants of America at the time of the European discovery were actually descendants of the [lost] Ten Tribes of Israel. The book was originally written in Hebrew (Mikveh Israel) or in Latin (Spes Israelis) around 1648, but its publication in English in 1650 in London caused great controversy and polemics in England. The novel theory was never proven, but it held European imagination for a long time in the centuries to come and had its followers later in America too.
Manoel Dias Soeiro (1604 – November 20, 1657), better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh Ben Israel (also, Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y), was a Portuguese rabbi, kabbalist, scholar, writer, diplomat, printer and publisher, founder of the first Hebrew printing press (named Emeth Meerets Titsma`h) in Amsterdam in 1626.
In 1655, Manasseh ben Israel petitioned Oliver Cromwell to allow the Jews to return to England. (Since the Edict of Expulsion in 1290, Jews had been prohibited by law from living in England.) One of the reasons for Cromwell's alleged interest in the return of the Jews to England was the abundance at the time of theories relating to the end of the world. Many of these ideas were fixed upon the year 1666 and the Fifth Monarchy Men who were looking for the return of Jesus as the Messiah who would establish a final kingdom to rule the physical world for a thousand years. They supported Cromwell's Republic in the expectation that it was a preparation for the fifth monarchy - that is, the monarchy that should succeed the Babylonia, the Persian, the Greek, and Roman world empires.
Mixed in with all of this was a background of general belief that the Lost Ten Tribes did not represent ethnic Jews who partially formed the ancient Kingdom of Judah, but tribes who maintained a separate capital at Samaria. Some have attempted to dismiss this complicated saga by stating that it is nothing but Supersessionism. However, the ideas behind these various competing theories are far more complicated, especially when Sabbatai Zevi, the "messiah" claimant and his supporters postulated that he represented groups in addition to those identified as being Jews. However, Zevi lost his credibility to all but the Donmeh when he converted to Islam and became an apostate to Judaism in 1666.
During the latter half of the 18th century, variations on this same theory were advocated by some who believed that the British Empire of nations was a manifestation of ancient prophecies recorded in the Book of Genesis predating both the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah.
Others believe that the Lost Tribes simply merged with the local population. For instance, the New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia states "In historic fact, some members of the Ten Tribes remained in Palestine, where apart from the Samaritans some of their descendants long preserved their identity among the Jewish population, others were assimilated, while others were presumably absorbed by the last Judean exiles who in 597-586 BC were deported to Assyria...Unlike the Judeans of the southern Kingdom, who survived a similar fate 135 years later, they soon assimilated.
Nasranis of Kerala (ancient Malabar)
The Nasranis of Kerala, India, are of Hebrew or Israelite heritage but not much is known of their past, making it difficult to be certain that they are also descended from the 'Lost Tribes'. (Ref. Dr. Asahel Grant's 'The Nestorians or the Lost Tribes of Israel' for more about the Nazarenes and Nestorians). However, recent DNA analysis results suggest significant Middle Eastern / Israelite components among the Nasranis, also known as Mar Thoma (St. Thomas) Syrian (Syriac) Christians, of Kerala (ancient Malabar). Dr. Avigdor Shachan, in his book 'In the Footsteps of the Lost Ten Tribes'(translated from the Hebrew, Devora Publishing, Jeusalem, New York) refers to this ancient Christian community and their faith as follows: "One could label the Christianity which Thomas introduced in Taxila, Malabar and other Israelite communities in central Asia and along the eastern and western coasts of India, "Israelite Christianity", an offshoot of the Jewish religion, for the language, culture, ritual and spirit that prevailed in this ancient church until the western missionaries arrived was a hybrid of Aramaic-Syrian-Eretz Israel and Eastern..." Another theory is that the Middle Eastern DNA found is from travelling Assyrian Nestorian missionaries who were undoubtedly responsible for bringing Christianity to Kerala.
BENE ISRAEL OF SOUTH ASIA
The Bene Israel (Hebrew: "Sons of Israel") are a group of Jews who live in various Indian cities, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad. Prior to their waves of emigration to Israel and still to this day, the Bene Israel form the largest sector of the subcontinent's Jewish population, and constitute the bulk of those sometimes referred to as Pakistani Jews. The native language of the Bene Israel is Judæo-Marathi, a form of Marathi. Most Bene Israel have now emigrated to Israel. Some researchers believe that the Bene Israel are descended from the Ten Tribes.
In 2010, Amir Mizroch in the Jerusalem Post referred to the theory that even Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be descending from the lost tribe of Efraim. Shahnaz Ali, a senior research fellow at the Indian National Institute of Immunohaematology in Mumbai, has started studying the blood samples that she collected from Afridi Pathans in Malihabad, in the Lucknow district in Uttar Pradesh, India, to check their putative Israelite origin.
JAPANESE
Some writers have speculated that the Japanese people themselves may be direct descendants of part of the Ten Lost Tribes. There are some parallels between Japanese and Israelite rituals, culture, traditions, and language, which provide some evidence for this possibility. An article that has been widely circulated and published, entitled "Mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes: Japan" by Arimasa Kubo (a Japanese writer living in Japan who studied the Hebrew Bible), concludes that many traditional customs and ceremonies in Japan are very similar to the ones of ancient Israel and that perhaps these rituals came from the religion and customs of the Jews and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who might have come to ancient Japan.
Joseph Eidelberg's "The Biblical Hebrew Origin of the Japanese People" makes a similar case:
Late in his life, Joseph Eidelberg began analyzing ancient traditions, religious ceremonies, historical names, haiku poems, Kana writings and Japanese folk songs, discovering thousands of words with similar pronunciations, sounds and translations between Hebrew and Japanese. These discoveries are history in the making, giving credible new information on the meanings of many unknown Japanese words, numbers, songs and cultural traditions – and this book is the first time that these remarkable similarities are combined into a single consistent theory.
AMERICAN INDIANS
Several explorers, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, claimed to have collected evidence that some of the American Indian tribes might be descended from the Ten Lost Tribes. Several recent books and articles have focused on these theories.
The belief that some American Indians were a Lost tribe of Israel goes back centuries and includes individuals like the 1782 President of the Continental Congress Elias Boudinot and Mordecai Noah, the most influential Jew in the United States in the early 19th Century.
The Book of Mormon, one of the religious texts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), claims that early residents of the Americas included descendents from the tribe of Joseph, and particularly through Manasseh.
Some sources such as Howshua Amariel (who we will discuss later) and various researchers assert that DNA evidence, linguistic research, and other research indicates links between the Cherokee Nation and the Jewish people. At this time we will focus on the Cherokee Indians to see if they are part of the dispersed tribes of the Hebrew people.
DISCOVERY OF THE INDIANS BY EUROPEANS AND THEIR HISTORY
Reading from Mordecai Noah, we find the most interesting and intriguing history of the Indian Nations.
On the discovery of America by Columbus, and the discoveries subsequent to his time, various tribes of Indians or savages were found to inhabit this our continent, whose origin was unknown.
The American Indians when first discovered, were not savages as described in books, movies, and most history books. They were a singular race of men, with enlarged views of life, religion, courage, constancy, humanity, policy, eloquence, love of their families; with a proud and gallant bearing, fierce in war, and, like the ancients, relentless in victory. Their hospitality might be quoted as examples among the most liberal of the present day. These were not wild men -- these were a different class from those found on the Sandwich and Feegee Islands: The red men of America, bearing as they do the strongest marks of Asiatic origin, have for more than 2000 years and divided as they are in upwards of 1300 different nations, been remarkable for their intellectual superiority; their bravery in war, their good faith in peace, and all the simplicity and virtues of their patriarchal fathers, until civilization, as it is called, had rendered them familiar with all the vices which distinguish the present era, without being able to enforce any of the virtues which are the boast of our present enlightened times.
It is, however, in the religious belief and ceremonies of the Indians that I propose showing some of the evidences of their being, as it is believed, the descendants of the dispersed tribes. This opinion is founded --
- In their belief in one God.
- In the computation of time by their ceremonies of the new moon.
- In their divisions of the year in four seasons, answering to the Jewish festivals of the feast of flowers, the day of atonement, the feast of the tabernacle, and other religious holydays.
- In the erection of a temple after the manner of our temple, and having an ark of the covenant, and also the erection of altars.
- By the division of the nation into tribes with a chief or grand sachem at their head.
- By their laws of sacrifice, ablutions, marriages ceremonies in war and peace, the prohibitions of eating certain things, fully carrying out the Mosaic institutions; -- by their traditions, history, character, appearance, affinity of their language to the Hebrew, and finally, by that everlasting covenant of heirship exhibited in a perpetual transmission of its seal in their flesh.
If I shall be able to satisfy your doubts and curiosity on these points, you will certainly rejoice with me in discovering that the dispersed of the chosen people are not the lost ones -- that the promises held out to them have been thus far realised, and that all the prophecies relative to their future destination will in due time be strictly fulfilled.
It has been the general impression, as before mentioned, that great resemblance existed between some of the religious rites of the Jews, and the peculiar ceremonies of the Indians; and the belief in one great spirit has tended to strengthen the impression; yet this mere resemblance only extended so far as to admit of the belief, that they possibly may have descended from the dispersed tribes, or may have been of Tartar or Malay origin.
It was, however, argued and unsatisfactory suspicion, which, having no tangible evidence, has been rejected, or thrown aside as a mere supposition. All the missionaries and travellers among the Indian tribes since the discovery of America -- Adair, Heckewelder, Charliveux, M'Kenzie, Bartram, Beltrami, Smith, Penn, Mrs. Simon, who has written a very interesting work on this subject, &c., have expressed opinions in favour of their being of Jewish origin -- the difficulty, however, under which they all laboured was simply this; they were familiar with the religious rites, ceremonies, traditions and belief of the Indians, but they were not sufficiently conversant with the Jewish rites and ceremonies, to show the analogy. It is precisely this link in the chain of evidence that I propose to supply.
It has been said that the Indians believing in one great Spirit and Fountain of Life, like the Jews, does not prove their descent from the missing tribes, because in a savage state their very ignorance and superstition lead them to confide in the works of some divine superior being. But savages are apt to be idolaters, and personate the deity by some carved figure or image to whom they pay their adoration and not like the Indians, having a clear and definite idea of one great Ruler of the universe, one great Spirit, whose attributes are as well known to them as to us. But if the continued unerring worship of one Creator like the Jews prove nothing, where did they acquire the same Hebrew name and appellation of that deity? If tradition had not handed down to them the ineffable name as also preserved by the Jews, how did they acquire it in a wilderness where the word of Yahweh was never known?
James Adair, who resided forty years among them, in his work published in 1775, says, "The ancient heathens worshipped a plurality of gods, but these Indians say their devoir to Lo-ak (Light) Ish-ta-hoola-aba, distinctly Hebrew, which means the great supreme beneficent holy Spirit of Fire who resides above.
They are, says Adair, utter strangers to all the gestures practised by the pagans in their religious rites -- they kiss no idols, nor would they kiss their hands in tokens of reverence or willing obedience.
These tribes, says Adair, so far from being Atheists, use the great and dreadful name of Yahweh which describes his divine essence, and by which he manifested himself to Moses! and are firmly persuaded that they now live under the immediate government of the Almighty Ruler. Their appellative for Yahweh is Isto-hoolo, the Hebrew of Esh-Eshys, from Ishto, Great, but they have another appellative, which with them as with us, is the mysterious essential name of Yahweh, which they never mention in common speech, and only when performing their most sacred religious rites, and then they most solemnly divide it in syllables, with intermediate words, so as not to pronounce the ineffable name at once.
Thus, in their sacred dances at their feast of the first fruits, they sing Aleluyah and Mesheha, from the Hebrew of Masheach, Messiah, the anointed one. Yo mesheha." He meshesha," "Wah meshehah," this making the Aleluyah the Mesheha, the Yehovah."
Can we, for a moment, believe that these sacred well known Hebrew words found their way by accident to the wilderness? Or can it be doubled that like the fire of the burning bush which never is extinguished, those words of religious adoration are the sacred relics of tradition, handed down to them from generation to generation? In the same manner, says Adair, they sing on certain other religious celebrations, ailyo ailyo, which is the Hebrew el for God by his attribute of omnipotence. They likewise sing hewah, hewah, He chyra, the "immortal soul." Those words sung at their religious rejoicings are never uttered at any other time, which must have occasioned the loss of their divine hymns. They on some occasions sing Shilu yo -- Shilu he --Shilu wah. The three terminations make up in their other the four lettered divine name in Hebrew. Shilu is evidently Shaleach, Shiloth, the messenger; "the peace maker."
The number of Hebrew words used in their religious services is incredible; thus, in chiding any one for levity during a solemn worship they say, Che hakeet Kana, "you resemble those reproved in Canaan," and to convey the idea of criminality, they say Hackset Canaha, "the sinners of Canaan." They call lightning eloah, and the rumbling of thunder rowah, from the Hebrew ruach, "spirit."
Like the Israelites they divide the year into four seasons, with the same festivals; they calculate by moons and celebrate as the Jews do the berachah halebana, the blessing for the new moon.
The Indians have their prophets and high priests, the same as the Jews had; not hastily selected; but chosen with caution from the most wise and discreet, and they ordain their high priests by anointing, and have a most holy place in their sanctuaries, like the Holy of Holies in the Temple. The Archimagus or High Priest, wears, in resemblance to the ancient breastplate, a white conch-shell ornamented so as to resemble the precious stones on the Urim, and instead of the golden plate worn by the Levite on his forehead, bearing the inscription Kodish Ladonaye, the Indian binds his brows with a wreath of swan's feathers, and wears a tuft of white feathers which he calls Yatira.
The Indians have their ark which they invariably carry with them to battle well guarded. In speaking of the Indian places of refuge, Adair says, "I observed that if a captive taken by the reputed power of the holy things of their ark, should be able to make his escape into one of these towns, or even into the winter house of the Archimagus, he is delivered from the fiery torture, otherwise inevitable. This, when taken in connection with the many other faint images of Mosaic customs, seems to point at the mercy-seat of the sanctuary. It is also worthy of notice, that they never place the ark on the ground. On hilly ground where large stones are plenty, they rest it thereon, but on level prairies, upon short logs, where they also seat themselves. And when we consider, continues Adair, in what a surprising manner the Indians copy after the ceremonial law of the Hebrews, and their strict purity in the war camps; that opae, "the leader" obliges till during the first campaign which they have made with the beloved ark, to stand every day they are not engaged in warfare, from sunrise to sunset, and after a fatiguing day's march and scanty allowance, to drink warm water embittered with rattle-snakeroot very plentifully, in order to purification; that they have also as strong a faith in the power of their ark as ever the Israelites had in theirs, ascribing the success of one party to their stricter adherence to the law, than the other, we have strong reason to conclude them of Hebrew origin. The Indians have an old tradition, that when they left their own native land, they brought with them a sanctified rod by order of an oracle, which they fixed every evening in the ground, and were to remove from place to place on the continent towards the sun rising till it budded in one night's time. I have seen other Indians, says the same writer, who related the same thing. Instead of the miraculous direction to which they limit it, in their western banishment, it appears more likely that they refer to the ancient circumstance of the rod of Aaron, which in order to check the murmur of those who conspired against him, was in his favour made to bud blossoms and yield almonds at one and the same time. It is a well attested fact, and is here corroborated by Adair, that in taking female captives the Indians have often protected them, but never despoiled them of honour.
The statement of Adair, in relation to the ark, is corroborated by several travellers. Major Long, a more recent traveller, in his expedition to the Rocky Mountains, says, in relation to the ark, "It is placed upon a stand, and is never suffered to touch the earth. No person dare open all the coverings. Tradition informs them that curiosity induced three different persons to examine the mysterious shell, who were immediately punished for their profanation by instant blindness." This is the Jewish punishment pronounced for looking on the holy of holies -- even now for looking on the descendants of the high priest who alone have the privilege of blessing the people.
The most sacred feast day uniformly kept by the Jews is the day of Atonement, usually falling in the month of September or early in October. This is deemed in every part of the world a most solemn fast, and great preparations are made for its celebration It is in the nature of expiation of sin, of full confession, penitence and prayer; and is preceded by ablution and preparation of morning prayer for some time.
It is a very sacred fast, which lasts from sunset on one day until the new moon is seen on the succeeding evening. It is not in the nature of a gloomily desponding penance, but rather a day of solemn rejoicing, of hope and confidence, and is respected by those most indifferent to all other festivals throughout the year.
Precisely such a fast, with similar motives, and nearly at the same period of the year, is kept by the Indian natives generally
Adair, after stating the strict manner in which the Indians observe the revolutions of the moon, and describing the feast of the harvest, and the first offerings of the fruits, gives a long account of the preparations in putting their temple in proper order for the great day of atonement, which he fixes at the time when the corn is full eared and ripe, generally in the latter end of September. He then proceeds:
"Now one of the waiters proclaims with a loud voice, for all the warriors and beloved men whom the purity of their law admits, to come and enter the beloved square, and observe the fast. He also exhorts the women and children, with those who have not been initiated in war, to keep apart, according to the law.
"Four centinels are now placed one at each corner of the holy square, to keep out every living creature as impure, except the religious order, and the warriors who are not known to have violated the law of the first fruit-offering, and that of marriage, since the last year's expiation. They observe the fast till the rising of the second sun; and be they ever so hungry in the sacred interval, the healthy warriors deem the duty so awful, and disobedience to inexpressibly vicious, that no temptation would induce them to violate it. They at the same time drink plentifully of a decoction of the button snake root, in order to vomit and cleanse their sinful bodies.
"In the general fast, the children and men of weak constitution, are allowed to eat, as soon as they are certain that the sun has begun to decline from his meridian altitude.
"Now every thing is hushed. Nothing but silence all around, The great beloved man, and his beloved waiter, rising up with a reverend carriage, steady countenance and composed behaviour, go into the beloved place, or holiest, to bring them out the beloved fire. The former takes a piece of dry popular, willow, or white oak, and having cut a hole, but no so deep as to reach through it, he then sharpens another piece, and placing that in the hole, and both between his knees, he drills it briskly for several minutes, till it begins to smoke -- or by rubbing to pieces together for a quarter of an hour, he collects by friction the hidden fire, which they all consider as proceeding from the holy spirit of fire.
"The great beloved man, or high priest, addresses the warriors and women; giving all the particular' positive injunctions and negative precepts they yet retain of the ancient law. He uses very sharp language to the women. He then addresses the whole multitude. He enumerates the crimes they have committed, great and small, and bids them look at the Holy fire which has forgiven them. He presses on his audience, by the great motives of temporal good and the fear of temporal evil, the necessity of a careful observance of the ancient law, assuring them that the holy fire will enable their prophets, the rain makers, to procure them plentiful harvests, and give their war leaders victory over their enemies. He then orders some of the fire to be laid down outside of the holy ground, for all the houses of the various associated towns, which sometimes lay several miles apart."
Mr. Bartram, who visited the southern Indians in 1778, gives an account of the same feast, but in another nation. He says, that the feast of first fruits is the principal festival. This seems to end the old and begin the new ecclesiastical year. It commences when their new crops are arrived to maturity. This is their most solemn celebration."
With respect to the sacrifices, we have had none since the destruction of the temple, but it was customary among the Jews, in the olden times, to sacrifice daily a part of a lamb. This ceremony is strictly observed by the Indians. The hunter when leaving his wigwam for the chase, puts up a prayer, that the great Spirit will aid his endeavours to procure food for his wife and children, and, when he returns with the red deer, whatever may be the cravings of hunger, he allows none to taste until he has cut part of the flesh, which he throws in the fire as a sacrifice, accompanied with prayer. All travellers speak of this practice among the Indians, so clearly Hebrew in its origin.
The bathings, anointings, ablutions, in the coldest weather, are never neglected by the Indians, and, like the Jews of old, they anoint themselves with bear's oil.
The Mosaic prohibition of eating unclean animals, and their enumeration, are known to you all. It would be supposed that, admidst the uncertainty of an Indian life, all kinds of food would be equally acceptable. Not so: for in strict conformity with the Mosaic law, they abstain from eating the blood of any animal, they abominate swine flesh, they do not eat fish without scales, the eel, the turtle or sea cow; and they deem many animals and birds impure. These facts are noticed by all writers, and particularly by Edwards in his History of the West Indies. The latter able historian, in noticing the close analogy between the religious rites of the Jews and Indians, says, "that the striking conformity of the prejudices and customs of the Caribbee Indians, to the practices of the Jews, has not escaped the notice of such historians as Gamella, Du Terte, and others;" and Edwards also states, that the Indians on the Oroonoke, punished their women caught in adultery, by stoning them to death before the assembly of the people.
Among the Mosaical laws is the obligation of one brother to marry his brother's widow, if he dies without issue. Major Long says, "if the deceased has left a brother, he takes the widow to his lodge after a proper interval and considers her as his wife." This is also confirmed by Charleviux.
It would occupy a greater space of time than I can afford, to trace a similitude between all the Indian rites and religious ceremonies, and those of the Jewish nation. In their births, in their separation after the births of their children, in their daily prayers and sacrifices, in their festivals, in their burials, in the employment of mourners, and in their general belief, I see a close analogy and intimate connection, with all the ceremonies and laws which are observed by the Jewish people; making a due allowance for what has been lost, and misunderstood, in the course of upwards of 2000 years.
A general belief exists among most travellers, that the Indians are the descendants of the missing tribes.
Menassah Ben Israel wrote his celebrated treatise, to prove this fact, on the discovery of America.
William Penn, who always acted righteously towards the Indians, and had never suspected that they had descended from the missing tribes, says, in a letter to his friends in England, "I found them with like countenances to the, Hebrew race. I consider these people under a dark night, yet they believe in God and immortality, without the aid of metaphysics. They reckon by moons, they offer their first ripe fruits, they have a kind of feast of tabernacles, they are said to lay their altars with twelve stones, they mourn a year, and observe the Mosaic law with regard to separation."
Emanuel de Moraez, in his history of Brazil, declares that America has been peopled by the Carthagenians and Israelites, and as to the Israelites, he says, nothing is wanting but circumcision, to constitute a perfect resemblance between them and the Brazilians.
The Rev. Mr. Beatty, a very worthy missionary, says, "I have often before hinted, that I have taken great pains to search into the usages and customs of the Indians, in order to see what ground there was for supposing them to be part of the ten tribes, and I must own, to my no small surprise, that a number of their customs appear so much to resemble those of the Jews, that it is a great question with me, whether we can expect to find among the ten tribes wherever they are at this day, all things considered, more of the footsteps of their ancestors than among the different Indian tribes."
Monsieur de Guignes, an old French historian, in speaking of the discoveries made in America, before the time of Columbus, says, "These researches, which of themselves, give us great insight into the origin of the Americans, lead to the determination of the route of the colonies sent to the continent;" and he proceeds to give reasons for his belief, that the greater part of them passed thither "by the most eastern extremities of Asia, where the two continents are only separated by a narrow strait, easy to cross" Beltram, in his discovery of the sources of the Mississippi, after a full and interesting account of the Indian, says, "Different authors have brought them hither from all parts of the world. I was at first induced to join with those who derived them from the Hebrews. It seemed impossible for me to doubt, that by so doing, I should be building on an impregnable foundation." He then proceeds to prove their Asiatic origin by many interesting facts.
The 4th Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, published his travels in America, in 1801" It is curious and pleasing," says he, "in reading the travels of those who have been among these people, to find how their customs comport with the laws of Moses;" and after describing at length their religious rites and ceremonies, his lordship emphatically observes, "It is a sound truth, that the Indians are descended from the ten tribes; and time and investigation will more and more enforce its acknowledgment."
It is, however, in Mexico and Peru, that we must look for the most enlightened and the most wealthy of the Indian race On the representations of Montesini, who travelled in South America, the learned Rabbi Menassah Ben Israel, as I have said before, wrote his famous work La Esperanza de Israel, which he published in Amsterdam, in 1650, endeavouring with great zeal to prove, that the Indians in North and South America were the descendants of the missing tribes; and Cromwell, to whom the work was dedicated, was greatly interested in the evidences produced on that occasion. Montesini, travelling through the province of Quif, found that his Indian guide was a Jew, and pursuing his inquiries, discovered that immense numbers lived behind the Cordilleras. Francis, the name of his guide, admitted to Montesini, that his God was called Adonai, and that he acknowledged Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as his ancestors, and they claimed to have descended from the tribe of Reuben.
Acosta contends, that they have a tradition relative to the deluge; that they preserve the rite of circumcision; they offer the first fruits, and in Peru they eat the Paschal Lamb; they believe in the resurrection, and clothe the dead with the richest equipage. Lopez de Gomara says, that some of them, and not all, are circumcised. Acosta continues, "the Mexicans point out, the various stations as their ancestors advanced into their country, and it is precisely the route which they must have held, had they been emigrants from Asia."
Menassah Ben Israel declares, that the Indians of Mexico had a tradition, that their magnificent place of worship had been built by a people who wore their beards, and were more ancient than their Incas. In the universal history of 1748, it is affirmed that the Mexicans and other American Indians rend their garments, in order the more effectually to express grief -- the Hebrew custom at this day.
Lopez de Gomara states, that the Mexicans offer sacrifices of the first fruits, and when Cortez approached Mexico, Montezuma shut himself up for the space of eight days in fasting and prayer. Emanuel de Moreas and Acosta say, that the Brazilians marry in their own tribes and families; and Escorbatus affirms, that he frequently heard the southern tribes repeat the sacred notes Ha-le-lu-yah. Malvenda states, that several tombstones were found in St. Michaels, with ancient Hebrew characters.
When the Spaniards invaded Mexico, the Cholula was considered a holy city by the natives, with magnificent temples, in which the High-Priest Quetzacotl preached peace to man, and would permit no other offerings to the Master of Life, than the first-fruits of the harvest. "We know by our traditions," said the venerable Prince Montezuma, to the Spanish General Cortez. "that we who inhabit this country are not the natives but strangers who come from a great distance."
Don Alonzo Erecella, in his history of Chili, says, the Araucanians acknowledge one Supreme Being, and believe in the immortality of the soul; and the Abbe Clavigero declares, that they have a tradition of the great deluge. The laws and ceremonies of the Peruvians and Mexicans have, no doubt, been corrupted in the course of many ages, both in their sacrifices and worship.
Their great and magnificent temple, evidently in imitation of that erected by Solomon, was founded by Mango Capac, or rather by the Inca Yupabque, who endowed it with great wealth. Clavagero and DeVega in their very interesting account of this temple, say, "what we called the altar was on the east side of the temple. There were many doors to the temple, all of which were plated with gold, and four walls the whole way around, were crowned with a rich golden garland, more than an ell in width. Round the temple were five square pavilions, whose tops were in the form of pyramids. The fifth was lined entirely with gold, and was for the use of the Royal High-Priest of sacrifices, and in which all the deliberations concerning the temple were held. Some of the doors led to the schools where the Incas listen to the debates of the philosophers, sometimes themselves explaining the laws and ordinances."
Mexico and Central America abound in curiosities, exemplifying the fact of the Asiatic origin of the inhabitants, and it is not many years ago, that the ruins of a whole city, with a wall nearly seven miles in circumference, with castles, palaces, and temples, evidently of Hebrew or Phoenician architecture, was found on the river Palenque. The 35th number of the Foreign Quarterly Review contains an interesting account of those antiquities.
The ruins of this city near Guatemala, in Central America, are described by Del Rio in 1782, when taken in conjunction with the extraordinary, I may say, wonderful antiquities spread over the entire surface of that country, awaken recollections in the specimens of architecture, which carry us back to the early pages of history, and prove beyond the shadow of doubt, that we who imagined ourselves to be the natives of a new world, but recently discovered, inhabit a continent which rivaled the splendor of Egypt and Syria, and was peopled by a powerful and highly cultivated nation from the old world. When we speak of what is called Mexican antiquities, we must not confound the rude labours of modern times, with the splendid perfections which distinguished the efforts of those who reared the Egyptian pyramids, and built the temples of Thebes and Memphis. It is not Mexican antiquities, but the antiquities of Tultecan; and in addition to the ruins of Palenque, on this our continent, there are pyramids larger than those of Sachara in Egypt at Cholula, Otamba, Paxaca, Mitlan, Tlascola, and on the mountains of Tescoca, together with hieroglyphics, planispheres and zodiacs, a symbolic and Phonetic alphabet; papyrus, metopes, triglyphs, and temples and buildings of immense grandeur; military roads, aqueducts, viaducts, posting stations and distances; bridges of great grandeur and massive character, all presenting the most positive evidences of the existence of a powerful enterprising nation, which must have flourished two thousand years before the Spanish Conquest. Take, for example, the description of the temple at Palenque, which Lord Kingsborough, in his travels, not only declares was built by Jews, and is a copy of Solomon's temple, but which, no doubt, is precisely the model of the temple described by Ezekiel. Travellers speak of it in the following terms:
"It may be appropriately called an ecclesiastical city, rather than a temple. Within its vast precincts, there appear to be contained, (as indeed was, in some measure, the case with the area that embraced the various buildings of Solomon's temple,) a pyramidal tower, various sanctuaries, sepulchres; a small and a large quadrangular court, one surrounded as we have said, by cloisters; subterranean; initiatory galleries beneath; oracles, courts of justice, high places, and cells or dwellings for the various orders of priests. The whole combination of the buildings is encircled by a quadrilateral pilastered portico, embracing a quadrangular area, and resting on a terraced platform. This platform exhibits the same architectural model, which we have described as characterizing the single temples. It is composed of three graduated stuccoed terraces, sloping inwards, at an angle of about seventy degrees, in the form of a truncated pyramid. Four central staircases, (one facing each of the cardinal points,) ascend these terraces in the middle of each lateral facade of the quadrangle; and four gates fronting the same cardinal points, conduct from the top of each staircase into the body of the building, or into the great court. The great entrance, through a pilastered gateway, fronts the east, and descends by a second flight of steps into the cloistered court. On the various pilasters of the upper terrace are the metopes, with singular sculptures. On descending the second staircase into the cloistered court, on one side, appears the triple pyramidal tower, which may be inferred, from the curious distribution of little cells which surround the central room of each story, to have been employed as place of royal or private sepulture. It would be pronounced a striking and tasteful structure, according to any architectural rule. On another side of the same cloistered court, is the detached temple of the chief god, to whom the whole religious building appears to have been devoted, who appears to have been the great and only God of the nations who worshipped in this temple. Beneath the cloisters, entered by staircases from above, are what we believe to be the initiatory galleries. These opened into rooms, one of which has a stone couch in it, and others are distinguished by unintelligible apparatus carved in stone. The only symbol described as found within these sacred haunts is, however, perfectly Asiatic and perfectly intelligible; we mean two contending serpents. The remnant of an altar, or high place, occupies the centre of the cloistered quadrangle. The rest of the edifice is taken up with courts, palaces, detached temples, open divans, baths, and streets of priestly cells, or houses, in a greater or less degree of dilapidation." * * * "It is perfectly clear from the few records of their religious rites, which have come down to us, and which are principally derived from the extraordinary rolls of American papyrus, * on which their beautiful hieroglyphical system is preserved, (there is one of considerable extent in the Dresden museum,) that they were as simple, perhaps we may add with propriety, as innocent. Not only does it appear that they had no human sacrifices, but no animal sacrifices whatever. Flowers and fruits were the only offerings made to the presiding divinity of their temple.
When Columbus discovered America, he found an innocent people in a demi-savage state, with Jewish traditions, and the only reference to early times was a vague impression, that the ruins they saw were built by giants, and a people called wandering masons.
I have the most settled conviction of this theory. The magnificent ruins which are to be seen at this day in Mexico and Central America, were the works of the Phoenicians, and the irruption of the wandering tribes from the north-west coast of America, swept that nation away, and have ever since maintained possession of this county, until white men have thinned their ranks, and gradually encroached upon, and usurped a great part of their territory.
The only opposition made to the general declaration of travellers, that the Indians are of Jewish descent, is, that they are red men, and are beardless. Now, take the olive complexion of the Jews in Syria, pass the nation over the Euphrates into a warmer climate, let them mingle with Tartars and Chinese, and after several generations reach this continent, their complexion would undergo some shades of hue and colour; and as to beards they cannot grow while they are continually plucked, as is the Indian custom. The colour proves nothing against their origin. Take our fellow-citizens on our eastern borders, and compare their florid colour with the sickly hue and sallow complexions of those living on the southern shores, in the palmettoes and everglades, and we shall see a marked distinction, and yet they are members of the same family.
Du Pratz, speaking of the traditions of the Natches tribe, relates, that in answer to the question, "whence come you?" their reply was, "All that we know is that our fathers, to come hither, followed the sun, and came from the place where he rises. They were long in their journey, they were nearly, perishing, and were brought to this wilderness of the sun setting without seeking it." Souard says of the Indians of Surinam, on the authority of Nasci, a learned Jew residing there, that the dialect of those Indians common in Guiuana is soft, agreeable and regular, and their substantives are Hebrew. Their language, in the roots, idioms, and particular construction, has the genius of the Hebrew language, as their orations have the bold, laconic and figurative style of the Hebrew prophets."
The Rev. Mr. Chapman says of the Osages, "it is their universal practice to salute the dawn of every morning with their devotion." A custom always prevailing among pious Jews.
Malvenda and Acosta both affirm, that the natives had a tradition of a jubilee, according to the jubilee of Israel.
Dr. Beatty, in speaking of the festival of the first-fruits by the nations west of the Ohio, says, "at this ceremony twelve of their old men divide a deer into twelve parts, and these men hold up the venison and fruits with their faces to the east, acknowledging the bounty of God to them. A singular and close imitation of the ceremonies and sacrifices of the temple." The doctor further says, "they have another feast which looks like the Passover."
Sir Alexander MacKenzie, in his tour to the north-west coast, says, that "the Chepewyan Indians have a tradition among them, that they originally came from another country, inhabited by very wicked people, and had traversed a great lake which was in one place narrow and shallow, and full of islands, where they had suffered great misery; and a further tradition has it that nine parts of their nation out of ten, passed over the river. The Mexicans affirm, that seven tribes or houses passed from the east to the wilderness."
Beltrami says, that the skeletons of the mammoths found in Kentucky and Missouri, and other parts of America, have been ascertained to resemble precisely those which have been found in Siberia and the eastern part of Asia, showing the facility of communication between the two coasts. And here it may be well to state a fact, which is strongly corroborative of the view we have taken, not only of the possibility of passing from one continent to the other, but of the actual and probably constant communication between them. Charlevoix, says he knew a Catholic priest, called Father Grillon, in Canada, who was recalled to Paris after his mission had been ended, and who was subsequently appointed to a similar mission in China. One day in Tartary, he suddenly encountered a Huron woman with whom he had been well acquainted in Canada, and who informed him that she had been captured, and passed from nation to nation, until she reached the north-west coast, when she crossed into Tartary.
Since delivering the present lecture, I have received a letter from Mr. Catlin, the celebrated painter, who for the last five years has been residing among the Indians. Mr. Catlin says,
"The first thing that strikes the traveller in an Indian country as evidence of their being of Jewish origin, (and it is certainly a very forcible one,) is the striking resemblance which they generally bear in contour, and expression of head, to those people. In their modes and customs, there are many striking resemblances, and perhaps as proof, they go much further than mere personal resemblance. Amongst those customs, I shall mention several that have attracted my attention, though probably they have never before been used for the same purpose; and others I may name, which are familiar to you, and which it may not be amiss to mention, as I have seen them practised while in their country.
"The universal custom among them of burying their dead with feet to the east, I could conceive to have no other meaning, or object than a journey to the east after death -- like the Jews, who expected to travel under ground after death to the land of Canaan. On inquiry, I found that though they were all going towards the 'setting sun,' during their lifetimes, they expected to travel to the east after death.
"Amongst the tribes, the women are not allowed to enter the medicine lodge. As they were not allowed in Judea to enter the court of Israel. Like the Jewish custom also, they are not allowed to mingle in worship with the men, and at meals, are always separated.
"In their modes, fastings, feastings, or sacrifices, they have also a most striking resemblance. Amongst all the western tribes, who have not been persuaded from those forms by white men, they are still found scrupulously and religiously adhering to, and practising them to the letter. The very many times and modes of sacrificing, remind us forcibly of the customs of the Israelites; and the one in particular, which has been seen amongst several of the tribes, though I did not witness it myself, wherein, like the manner of the 'peace-offering,' the firstling and that of the male is offered, and 'no bone is to be broken.' Such circumstances afford the strongest kind of proofs. All the tribes have a great feast at the dawn of spring, and at those feasts their various sacrifices are made. At the approach of the season of green corn, a feast of the first ears are sacrificed, with great solemnity, followed by feasting and dancing: so at the ripening of different kinds of fruit. The first and best piece that is cut from a buffalo is always Deo Dante.
"Over the medicine lodge, and also over the lodges of the most distinguished chiefs, are hung on high poles large quantities of fine cloth, white buffalo robes, or other most costly articles which can be procured, there to decay, in offering to the Great Spirit.
"The bunch of willow boughs with which each dancer is supplied, in the Mandan religious ceremonies, the sacrificing and other forms therein observed, certainly render it somewhat analogous to the Israelitish feast of tabernacles.
"The universal practice of "solus cum sola' of the women, ablution and anointing with bear's grease, is strikingly similar to the Jewish custom. Every family has a small lodge expressly for this purpose, and when any one of the family are ready for it, it is erected within a few rods, and meat is carried to her, where she dwells, and cooks and eats by herself; an object of superstitious dread to every person in the village.
"The absence of every species of idolatry amongst the North American Indians, affords also a striking proof of the ceremonial law, and stamps them at once, in one respect, at all events, differing from all other savage tribes of which we have any knowledge."
What are, I may ask, the characters of these people? On the discovery of America by Columbus, nearly 2000 years after the dispersion of the Hebrew tribes, the whole continent is found peopled; not with a race of wild men, of cannibals, of savages, but with a race of intellectual, moral, innocent persons, divided into many hundred nations, and spread over 8000 miles of territory. "I swear to your majesties," said Columbus, writing to Ferdinand and Isabella, "that there is not a better people in the world than these; more affectionate or mild. They love their neighbours as themselves; their language is the sweetest, the softest and the most cheerful, for they always speak smilingly." Major Long says, "they are the genuine sons of nature; they have all the virtues nature can give, without the vices of civilization. They are artless, fearless, and live in constant exercise of moral and christian virtues, though they know it not."
Charlevoix gives his testimony in their behalf. "They manifest," says he, "much stability in their engagements, patience in affliction, and submissive acquiescence in what they apprehend the will of Providence. In all this, they display a nobleness of soul and constancy of mind, at which we rarely arrive, with all our philosophy and religion."
Du Pratz contends, that they have a greater degree of prudence, faithfulness and generosity, than those who would be offended with a comparison with them. "No people," says he, "are more hospitable and free."
Bartram, who lived many years in the Creek nation, says, "Joy, contentment, love and friendship without guile or affectation, seem inherent in them, or predominant in their vital principle, for it leaves them but with their breath. They are," says he, "just, honest, liberal and hospitable to strangers; considerate and affectionate to their wives, children and relations; frugal and persevering, charitable and forbearing."
Who are they? Men do not grow up like stones or trees or rocks; they are not found in herds like wild animals. Yahweh that made man in his own image, gave to the Indians an origin and parentage, like unto the rest of the great family of mankind, the work of his own almighty hand. From whom then did our red brethren, the rightful owners of this continent, descend?
There seems to be no difference of opinion that they are of Asiatic origin, and not indigenous to our soil. Nearly all writers and historians concur on this point -- they are Asiatic -- they crossed to the continent of America from Asia; but who are they, arid from whom have they descended?
Eldad, who wrote learnedly of the twelve tribes, in 1300, contends, that the tribe of Dan went into Ethiopia, and pretends that the tribes of Naphtali, Gad and Asher followed. That they had a king of their own, and could muster 120,000 horse and 100,000 foot. In relation to part of these three tribes, there might have been some truth in it, for Tigleth Pelieser did compel them to go into Ethiopia. Issachar, he contends, remained with the Medes and Persians. Zebulon extended from the mountains of Pharan to the Euphrates. Reuben dwelt behind Pharan, and-spoke Arabic. Ephraim and half Manasseh were thrown on the southern coast. Benjamin of Tudela places Dan, Asher, Naphtali and Zebulon on the banks of the river Gozan. In the midst of all these contradictory and vague statements, two opinions prevail among Jews and Christians, in early and in late periods. One is, that the ten tribes went into Tartary, where they remained; the other, that from Tartary they penetrated into America.
Manasseh Ben Israel, the most learned of the nation, declares that they passed into America. Lescarbot believes, that the Indians are the posterity of Ham, expelled by Joshua, and who passed out of the Mediterranean, and were driven by storms to the American coast; Grotius contends, that the inhabitants of the new world were originally from Greenland; and while Basnage frankly admits, that manifest tracts of Judaism are to be found in America, he contends, that the tribes could not have overcome the warlike Scythians and penetrated to this continent, and that they remained in Halak and Heber, and in the cities of the Medes.
Truth, no doubt, lies between these opinions. Many of the tribes passed into Egypt and Ethiopia, many remained in Persia and Tartary, all did not make for the north-west coast, nor was it necessary that all should do so. There were degrees of piety and condition then as now. Restore Jerusalem to-morrow, and all the Jews will not return there. Rabbi Akiba contends, that all the noble families remained in Persia. A number, a considerable number, no doubt, impressed with the solemn belief, that if they remained in Persia, they would in time become idolaters, and lose all the landmarks of their ancient faith, resolved, like those who went out of Egypt, to remain no longer in bondage, and, as Esdras says; they departed for a country "wherein mankind never before had dwelt" -- and the resolution was perfectly feasible. It was a thickly populated country, and by keeping on the borders of China, they would, within the time prescribed, namely eighteen months, have reached our continent. At this day, there is a constant intercourse between the continents, and a trip to the Rocky mountains, once so terrifying, is now a mere summer's journey.
If the Indians of America are not the descendants of the missing tribes, again I ask, from whom are they descended? From the Egyptians? Wherein in their belief, is there the least resemblance to the worship of Isis and Osiris, or the hieroglyphics or historical reminiscences of that very ancient people? Are they part of the fierce Scythians? Their warlike propensities would prove them to be so; but where among those barbarians do we discover the belief in one Great Spirit, together with the softer virtues, the purity and talents of the Indians? Are they of the Tartar race? Their complexion, "the shadowed livery of the burning sun," might be offered in evidence; but, they have not the flat head, the angular and twinkling eye, nor the diminutive figure of the Chinese or Tartars.
The Indians have distinct Jewish features, and neither in mind, manners, nor religion, bear any affinity to the Tartar race. I have endeavoured to show this by their traditions, by their religion, by their ceremonies, which retain so much of the ancient worship. But there is one proof more, which, in my mind, removes all doubt. Sir Alexander MacKenzie, in his journal of a tour to the north-west continent of America, declares from his own observation, that the Chippewa Indians practise circumcision, which fact is corroborated by several other travellers amongst the various tribes.
It will scarcely be necessary for me to refer you to the many prophetic warnings relative to the sins, the denunciations; the promises, the dispersion and redemption, of the Jewish people, which we find throughout the Bible. With that good book you all are or should be familiar -- it is a delightful book, view it in any manner you please. Let the unbeliever sneer and the philosopher doubt, it is certain that the most important events predicted by the prophets hare come to pass, giving an assurance which is stripped of all doubt, that what remains to be fulfilled, will be fulfilled. In what direction are we to look for the missing tribes according to the prophets? From Jeremiah we learn that they are to come from a country north and west from Judea. From Isaiah, "it is a country far from Judea," and answering also "from the ends of the earth."
In Zechariah we are told, it must be in the western regions, or the country of the going down of the sun; and according to the historian Esdras, it must be a land wherein mankind never before had dwelt, and of course, free from the residence of the heathen.
Our prophet Isaiah has a noble reference to the dispersed tribes and their redemption, which may be here appropriately quoted. I use his language, the Hebrew, which from its peculiar associations should be always interesting to you.
"And it shall come to pass in that day, that Yahweh shall set his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.”
"And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the earth.”
"And there shall be a highway, for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, like as it was to Israel, in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt."
May I not with propriety refer, among other evidences, to the cruel persecutions which have uniformly been practised towards the Indians of this continent, not unlike those which the chosen people have suffered for the last eighteen centuries? "What makes you so melancholy?" said General Knox to the chief of an Indian deputation, that he was entertaining in this city, at the close of the revolutionary war. "I'll tell you, brother, said the aged chief; "I have been looking at your beautiful city -- the great water full of ships -- the fine country, and see how prosperous you all are. But then, I could not help thinking, that this fine country was ours. Our ancestors lived here. They enjoyed it as their own in peace. It was the gift of the Great Spirit to them, and their children. At last, white men came in a great canoe. They only asked to let them tie it to a tree, lest the water should carry it away. We consented. They then said some of their people were sick, and they asked permission to land them, and put them under the shade of the trees. The ice then came and they could not go away. They then begged a piece of land to build wigwams for the winter. We granted it to them. They then asked corn to keep them from starving. We furnished it out of our own scanty supply They promised to go away when the ice melted. When this happened, they, instead of going pointed to the big guns round the wigwams and said, 'we shall stay here.' Afterwards came more: they brought intoxicating drinks, of which the Indians became fond. They persuaded them to sell their land, and, finally, have driven us back, from time to time, to the wilderness, far from the water, the fish, and the oysters. They have scared away our game -- my people are wasting away. We live in the want of all things, while you are enjoying abundance in our fine and beautiful country. This makes me sorry, brother, and I cannot help it."
These persecutions and repeated acts of cruelty and injustice appear to have no termination -- the work of destruction, commenced with the Narragansetts, will extend to the Seminoles, and gradually to the blue waters of the Pacific. Look even now at the contest maintained by a handful of Indians in the everglades of Florida. Do they war against unequal numbers for a crown -- for a part of that immense surplus which overflows from the coffers of a country, which was once their own? No -- they fight for the privilege of dying where the bones of their ancestors lie buried, and yet we, Christians as we call ourselves, deny them that boon, and drive the lords of the soil into the den of the otter.
In referring to the splendid specimens of Indian oratory, where, I would ask, can you find such wisdom, such lofty and pure eloquence, among the Chinese and Tartars, even at this day?
The Indians, like the Hebrews, speak in parables. Of their dialects, there is no doubt, that the Algonquin and Huron are the parents of five hundred Indian tongues -- they are copious, rich, regular, forcible and comprehensive; and although here and there strong Hebrew analogies may be found, yet it is reasonable to suppose, that the Indian languages are a compound of all those tongues belonging to the various Asiatic nations, through which they passed during their pilgrimage.
Firmly as I believe the American Indian to have been descended from the tribes of Israel, and that our continent is full of the most extraordinary vestiges of antiquity, there is one point, a religious as well as a historical point, in which you may possibly continue to doubt, amidst almost convincing evidences.
If these are the remnants of the nine and a half tribes which were carried into Assyria, and if we are to believe in all the promises of the restoration, and the fulfillment of the prophecies, respecting the final advent of the Jewish nation, what is to become of these our red brethren, whom we are driving before us so rapidly, that a century more will find them lingering on the borders of the Pacific ocean?
Possibly, the restoration may be near enough to include even a portion of these interesting people. Our learned Rabbis have always deemed it sinful to compute the period of the restoration; they believe that when the sins of the nation were atoned for, the miracle of their redemption would be manifested. My faith does not rest wholly in miracles -- Providence disposes of events, human agency must carry them out. That benign and supreme power which the children of Israel had never forsaken, has protected the chosen people amidst the most appalling dangers, has saved them from the uplifted sword of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, and while the most powerful nations of antiquity have crumbled to pieces, we have been preserved, united and unbroken, the same now as we were in the days of the patriarchs -- brought from darkness to light, from the early and rude periods of learning to the bright reality of civilization, of arts, of education and of science.
CHEROKEE NATION
The Cherokee (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩ, Tsalagi) are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States (principally Georgia, the Carolinas and East Tennessee). Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family. In the 19th century, historians and ethnographers recorded their oral tradition that told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian-speaking peoples were located. In the 19th century, white settlers in the United States called the Cherokees one of the "Five Civilized Tribes", because they had assimilated numerous cultural and technological practices of European American settlers. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the Cherokee Nation has more than 300,000 members, the largest of the 565 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States.
The Cherokee refer to themselves as Tsalagi (ᏣᎳᎩ) or Aniyvwiyaʔi (ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ), which means "Principal People." The Iroquois called the Cherokee Oyata’ge'ronoñ (inhabitants of the cave country). Many theories — though none proven — abound about the origin of the word Cherokee. It may have originally been derived from the Choctaw word Cha-la-kee, which means "those who live in the mountains", or Choctaw Chi-luk-ik-bi, meaning "those who live in the cave country". The earliest Spanish rendering of Cherokee, from 1755, is Tchalaquei. Another theory is Cherokee derives from a Lower Creek word, Ciló-kki, meaning someone who speaks another language. The most likely derivation, however, is an Anglicisation of their own name, Tsalagi.
Much of what is known about pre-18th-century Native American cultures, including the Cherokee, has come from records of Spanish expeditions. Some of this work was not translated into English and made available to historians until the 20th century. In addition, the dominance of English colonists over the Southeast led to a discounting of Spanish sources for some time.
American writer John Howard Payne wrote about pre-19th century Cherokee culture and society. The Payne papers describe the account by Cherokee elders of a traditional two-part societal structure. A "white" organization of elders represented the seven clans. As Payne recounted, this group, which was hereditary and priestly, was responsible for religious activities, such as healing, purification, and prayer. A second group of younger men, the "red" organization, was responsible for warfare. The Cherokee considered warfare a polluting activity, and warriors required the purification of the priestly class before participants could reintegrate into normal village life. This hierarchy had disappeared long before the 18th century.
Researchers have debated the reasons for the change. Some historians believe the decline in priestly power originated with a revolt by the Cherokee against the abuses of the priestly class known as the Ani-kutani. Ethnographer James Mooney, who studied the Cherokee in the late 1880s, was the first to trace the decline of the former hierarchy to this revolt. By the time of Mooney, the structure of Cherokee religious practitioners was more informal, based more on individual knowledge and ability than upon heredity.
Another major source of early cultural history comes from materials written in the 19th century by the didanvwisgi (ᏗᏓᏅᏫᏍᎩ), Cherokee medicine men, after Sequoyah's creation of the Cherokee syllabary in the 1820s. Initially only the didanvwisgi adopted and used such materials, which were considered extremely powerful in a spiritual sense. Later, the syllabary and writings were widely adopted by the Cherokee people.
Several early explorers, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, claimed to have collected evidence that some of the Native American tribes might be descended from the Ten Lost Tribes. James Adair, an Irish trader and historian who lived among the Cherokees for forty years in the 18th century, decided the Indians were one of the lost tribes of Yahdah, and wrote seventy thousand words on the subject at a time when printed words were dear. He used as evidence such topics as their division into tribes; their language and dialects; their festivals, feasts, and religious rites; their absolutions and anointings; their laws of uncleanness, their avoidance on unclean things; their practices of marriage, divorce, and punishment for adultery; and their ornaments. Adair was one of a series of writers who held similar views, among them Gregorio Garcia, Bartolome de las Casas, Thomas Thorowgood, John Eliot, Manasseh ben Israel, Cotton Mather, Roger Williams, William Penn, and Charles Beatty. Below is a map showing the Cherokee Nations and their migration throughout the Americas.
HOWSHUA AMARIEL, CHEROKEE INDIAN
When I was in Israel in 2008, I met a man Howshua Amariel, who is of Cherokee Indian descent. I met him at Tel Arad, where the only excavated House of Yahweh, in the land of Israel, is located. Most intriguing was his information on the Cherokee Nation/People, showing that they were of the Dispersed Tribes of Israel. His knowledge of the ancient Paleo-Hebraic language was based on the fact that he was taught the Cherokee language and aleph-bet. He is the first to write an Hebrew/English translation of the Paleo-Hebraic Holy Scriptures. While this is not an attempt to exalt a man, I think it is important to understand that there are Cherokee Indians who have spent most of their lives to prove their Hebrew heritage and have the proofs to back up past historians. I saw most of his archaeological evidence and am a witness to what is written about him to be true. What is most important is that he has spent the last 15 years revealing the House of Yahweh in Tel Arad to the world. I also found it to be interesting that a Cherokee Indian Chief has devoted his life to protecting and promoting the House of Yahweh in the land of Israel and sees the great importance of this most awesome family name, House of Yahweh. Here is information on this man and his studies.
Howshua Amariel was born in a family of Native American Cherokee (Hispanic) they also share the distinctive belief on his Native American linage that they are descendants from the lost tribe of Ephraim that came originally from the Middle East around 2500 years ago to the Americas. The family celebrates all the Israelite holidays, keeps Shabbat, follows the laws of Kashrut, (dietary laws) and maintained the knowledge of the old Hebrew language. Thus Mr. Amariel has dedicated his life to the study of ancient Hebrew Torah.
“Identifying with the Black Hebrews, Amariel has a notebook full of leaflets, oceanography charts, genealogy maps, and linguistic analysis all pointing towards his conclusion; that one of the Judean tribes wandered through the Arabian Peninsula to Africa and established its own branch of Judaism there.”
Rabbi Howshua Amariel's quest went beyond proving to the State of Israel the genetic link between the Black Indians and their Jewish brethren. He also stated that many Africans are in fact Black Hebrews. As such, he is petitioning the Israeli government to grant them both the full right of return allowed to Ethiopian Jews. "There are millions of us, who want to return here to Israel. People say we are the lost tribe, but we are not lost, we know exactly who we are." After Amariel’s statements there followed several articles and additional DNA evidence from various members of the Cherokee Nation, which linked to the Jewish people. However, the belief that some Native Americans were a Lost tribe of Israel goes back for centuries and includes individuals like the 1782 President of the Continental Congress Elias Boudinot and Mordecai Noah, the most influential Jew in the United States in the early 19th Century.
As we have seen from the above mentioned articles, the Indians and most notably the Cherokee Indians have kept many ordinances of the Laws of Yahweh. They were a peaceful, spiritual people who believed in one source of Power, one Spirit, one Creator of the universe and the earth. Today, one of their kind was instrumental in revealing the founded House of Yahweh in Israel.
RESEMBLANCES OF THE CHEROKEE AND HEBREW RELIGIOUS ORDINANCES
The Cherokee Indians in their religious beliefs had similiar practices in their beliefs, as our modern Hebrew counterparts, called the Jews. We have already read that the original British Colonists who wrote about the Early Cherokee or Old Cherokee (of the Mediavel Cherokee Era of the 1600s) report that they were some kind of Hebrews or Jewish Sect! These include the reports of Payne, Butrick, and Adair. And Bartram (1701) presented the Cherokee as unique among the other Native Americans as they were NOT idolatrous, but seem to have some kind of God-fearing religion, and belief in a ONE TRUE GOD! Now, while modern historians tend to laugh at these claims, the records of this Era, seem to be rather convincing--at face value. And thus the Early or Mediavel Cherokee had some kind of Hebrew, if not Messianic (Jewish-Christian) Religion.
Below is similiar practices of the Cherokee people in comparison to the Jewish people.
- Their dress: they also wore similar dress, including the fringes on their garments. The high priest or chief, wore fringe and tassels on his garment that hung down to the knees.
- They had the same manner of worship and customs, that are identical to Hebrew.
- The Cherokees have their own "DAY OF ATONEMENT: which is identical to Israel's.
- The Northern Cherokee Nation of Old Louisiana Territory has recently shocked the
world by claiming that their ancient oral legends tell of a Cherokee migration
made to America from the area in Israel known as MASADA!
- In marriage customs among many Indian tribes is very similar to the point of striking.
A widow could not marry without the permission of her brother-in-law. This custom only existed among the American Indians and the Israelites!
- Their TOTEM corresponded in significance with the Israelites ARK OF THE COVENANT.
This chest was carried on poles and could never touch the ground. In wartime the Israelites carried the ark. The Cherokee and other tribes, did the same with their totem.
- Among the Israelites, the new moon was linked to the Sabbath, and the Festival of
- the New Moon was a Biblical feast.
- Among them too, ceremonies of the New Moon were of highest importance.