We stopped at a high hill peak, called modernly “The Promenade”, south of the Temple Mount, and looked across a big valley to see the view of Mt. Moriah, where the Dome of the Rock mosque is today. The Bible tells us Abraham journeyed to Moriah with his son, Isaac, to sacrifice him on the altar. They had journeyed from the South, from Beersheva, through Hebron. As we stood there today, and looked across to the Dome of the Rock, we were looking at the SW corner of the wall, with the Southern wall going to our right and the Western wall going to our left, generally speaking, sort of “2:00” and “10:00”, if we were standing at “6:00”.
The Midrash gives a lot of commentary about the Akedah (the sacrificing of Isaac), information that is not in Scripture. For instance, most modern-day followers of Yeshua will be surprised to learn that the Midrash says that Sarah and Avraham discussed the sacrifice of Isaac, on the trip, and she said “absolutely not”. But, Avraham got up early on the 3rd day, he “rose”, which means he slept, did not spend a sleepless night, and went on to the mountain top with Isaac. At the foot of the mountain, when he told the servants to stay behind, he also told them “we” will return to you. This is evidence of his great faith in God, trusting that He would provide a sacrifice.
But back to Sarah … When Sarah discovered that they had gone on to Moriah, she died.
The Midrash goes on to say that after Avraham and Isaac came down from the mountain together, the servants who had journeyed to the foot of the mountain with them told them the sad tidings about Sarah. When Isaac got word his mother had died, he separated from his father for the next 22 years.
So, despite the fact that Avraham “passed the test” of faith in God, it was a very costly incident in the family of Avraham, Isaac and Sarah.
This may cause you to wonder what Midrash actually is. The religious works with the highest authority in Judaism is the Tanakh, which Christians call the Old Testament. But, there were also many rabbinical interpretations of how various parts of the Tanakh, specifically the 613 commandments, were to be carried out in actual practice. This information was communicated to the people via the priests, who took great pains to preserve it, as each generation of priests trained the next.
However, the Romans threw a wrench into this centuries-old process.
Yochanan Ben Zakkai is known as the founder of Rabbinic Judaism.
He was a pacifist and told them to not fight the Romans.
After the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, along with all its records, the Oral Law began to be written down.
Ben Zakkai snuck out of the city in a coffin and told the Roman big-wig Titus that Titus would soon become Emperor. He said that if that happened, he, Titus, would grant a favor to Ben Zakkai. Titus did become Emperor, and he did grant Ben Zakkai a favor. The favor asked for was for Zakkai to be allowed to establish learning academies in Tiberius.
Now, very oddly…..There’s almost a parallel story about Josephus! So, it appears that someone is borrowing from someone else’s story. More importantly, if not for those academies which were protected by the Romans, Judaism would have likely died out.
During this period, they had this hope they would NOT have to write it down, because they hoped to get the Temple back. This is the period between 70 CE and Bar Kochba Rebellion. Lots of patriotic fervor and nationalism going on.
The religious documents produced in these years became the Mishnah and the Talmud. But, you still don’t know what a Midrash is, do you? Midrash is a word from the word “drash” - - to investigate thoroughly. The Mi on the front of the word indicates “place of”. So, Midrash is a record of discussion, hashing out the Oral Law along with the Tanakh, the ongoing struggle to live it out in daily life, making application of it to daily life.
So, the earliest oral law is the Brit Chadasha, the New Testament, because it was complete by the end of the first century CE. Yet, what we call the Midrash was not written down until 180 CE.
After we left that place, we went back into the Christian quarter of the Old City and visited Christ Church. The first Christian churches in Jerusalem with either Coptic Christian, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox or Armenian. The Protestants did not even begin to establish a presence in the Old City until the 1800s. Christ Church is officially affiliated with the Church of England, but it was founded by a Jewish bishop who converted to Christianity. So, it has been a Church of England branch a little on the odd side…even though it IS the oldest Protestant church in the Middle East.
At any rate, inside the church is a model of the Temple complex, constructed by Conrad Schick, an architect of 19th c. Jerusalem. We spent several minutes exploring this model, which was very informative.
It was a gorgeous day in Jerusalem today, not too hot, and with a nice, dry breeze. We sat and heard more teaching as we sat in the Christ Church courtyard. At one point, I glanced up into the tree overhead and saw some beautiful lemons growing up there.
We shopped for a couple of hours in the Jewish Quarter and had lunch there. Around 2:00, we left to go to a holy site called Rachel’s Tomb, Ramat Rachel in Hebrew. We are told in Genesis 35:19 that while Rachel and Jacob were journeying from Bethel toward Jerusalem, Rachel began to labor, giving birth to Benjamin. She died as he was born, and this occurred at Ephrath, that is Bethlehem. So, today, the site known as Rachel’s Tomb butts right up against the huge concrete wall that divides Bethlehem from Jerusalem. It is an austere sight. The wall was erected some years ago, because there were so many rockets fired into Jerusalem from that Palestinian area. Now, there is a huge, ugly wall, but there is peace.
Women and men, but especially women, love to pray at Rachel’s Tomb. Many of them are said to pray for children, especially women who have trouble conceiving.
The next place we visited today is called Migdal Eder, or the Tower of Eder, and is mentioned in Genesis 35:21. After Rachel died, Jacob camped here.
This was also recently determined to be the hillside where “shepherds watched their flocks by night”, as mentioned in Luke 2:8. You know, in the story of the birth of the Savior. There are the ruins of towers there, because (and this is not widely known) the shepherds would watch over their sheep from these watch towers.
Jerusalem is four miles to Migdal Eder. Any animals found within 4 miles of the Temple, were deemed the property of the Temple. The Levitical shepherds took care of them. And, these were Levitical (Sadducees) shepherds at Migdal Eder. Well, I could really dive into the Christmas story here, but I will restrain myself! However, if you want to read a very interesting take, an Messianic Jewish take, on that wonderful story, with an emphasis on the Star of Bethlehem, I want to recommend you check out the teaching website of one of the teachers on our trip, Andrew Roth. Here it is: onefaithonepeopleministries.com
We went back to the hotel from Migdal Eder, where the view is amazing, by the way. I could just envision a huge supernova exploding into the skies and then the skies filling with angels! After we got back, I went shopping on Ben Yehuda Street with a couple of friends. There was so much street music! It was like a carnival! Then, it was dinner and fellowship activities the rest of the evening.
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