Teachings 

 

The roots of the Bible

 

 

What is the Truth?

 

Eszter Orbán

 

We all have already asked this question at least once in our life. Since very ancient times, men try to find the answer to this question and to define what the Truth is. Through all kind of methods, of philosophies and theologies, mankind endlessly attempts to understand and to define that thing.
All the different religions do also try to define this expression using different aspects and by various ways.  
Myself, as a Jewish woman living in Yeshua HaMashiach, I cannot do anything else than going back to the source, to the point everything come from.   
Although in a human and chronological point of view, we will now fly back a few thousands of years in the past, it is necessary to know that without the knowledge of our past, it is impossible to understand our present and to see our future.  

The notion of Truth in the Jewish thinking:

In Hebrew, we can find several terms defining truth (justice) and each one of these do also have several further meanings. Already these words are not the synonyms of each other as we will see it in what follows…
Let us examine them more in details!

Emet – אמת:

Meanings: truth, solidity, firmness, stability, durability, reality, faithfulness

Tzedek – ץדק:

Meanings: true, truth, correct, right, legitimate, equitable, victory, salvation

Emuna – אמונה:

Meanings : truth, justice, righteousness, straightness, solidity, certitude, faithfulness, faith, confession, testimony

We can see that although the meaning of the three word do always contain the word truth, nevertheless their further meanings give them a different role and function.  
If we successively examine in the Bible what are the places where truth is mentioned and what are the original Hebraic words that are used, we can really find some very deep and interesting analogies and parallels…

What do these three words mean and how Jewry does use and conceive them?  

Emet

In the Torah, this word does only appear once: when we read about the 13 characteristics of the Eternal: "And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth (in Emet)" (Exodus 34,6)
All along in the rest of the Old Testament this word does almost never appear again when we talk about the truth!
This is a very interesting thing. What is the reason to this?
If we look at the other meanings of this word, we can see that this truth refers to the Absolute Truth, to the Eternal God in other words. This Truth is the Eternal Himself. No one is allowed to use it, to touch it, or to expropriate it. This Truth is the Reality itself, the solid and unshakeable certainty.
Jewish people do know the essence and the message of this word. They know that the Existence is no longer human here; it is a matter of this spiritual dimension of Life and of Existence from where man cannot steel anything without undertaking the death sentence at the same time. Because the word Emet is indeed composed by the letters ת מ א (aleph-mem-tav) from which if we remove the first one, the letter א (aleph), we have מ (mem) and ת (tav) which is no other than the word met that means death.
This also reminds and warns us the fact that if anyone tries to reduce what is spiritual to a human level, to the level of the soul, trying to degrade what is coming from God to some material and palpable stuff, he immediately deforms the divine. Thus he does take off the א (aleph), since in the Hebrew alphabet; א (aleph) is the first letter, the one having the smallest value. If we take away the smallest thing to what is divine with the aim of using it for our own purposes, God does automatically take his Existence off us. Because anybody touches the Existence has to die. Perhaps we are now able to understand the reason why the People of Israel was afraid to appear before God if we just think to the wandering in the desert, since they knew that no mortal would survive the encounter with the Existence itself. In a word, the flesh and the soul and all that is sinner are unable to understand the Spirit. For this reason, only the righteous is able to appear before the Emet…
The Absolute Truth is then the God of the Existence. In this truth, in this spiritual state where time and space stop existing and where the Eternal is eternal...  

I have seen and red many times about groups or communities pretending to be messianic and that attributed the name of Emet to their assemblies or to their websites. How sad it is that these people do not know the spiritual content of this word and its Jewish root together with the consequences involved by such a theft!!!... Because we never shall design anybody of anything with this name that only belongs to the Eternal God!!!

Tzedek

After having defined the Eternal as being Emet in Exodus 34-6, it is the word Tzedek which is used in the rest of the Torah to signify rightness or truth. In Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy we often can read sentences like: to walk in justice, to act in truth, to judge right, to follow justice, etc. Each time, it is the word Tzedek which is used.  

But why?

If we look them more in details, we can see that in these cases it is a matter of a more active kind of truth. It is exactly for that reason that the word of Tzadik, standing for righteous (the one who’s acting are legitimates) directly comes from the word Tzedek. This truth, this Tzedek is already the consequence of the fact that the Absolute Truth, the Emet came to life, sat in action, thus became Tzedek in me. Since I am locked in a physical and human body as long as I am here on earth, I cannot live the spiritual completeness (the Emet) completely. I can and I must then live in the Tzedek, in this truth which is the mirror of the Emet, in other words, the reflection of the invisible world in the visible one.

In the other books of the Old Testament (according to the Jewish subdivision, the books of Neviim = Prophets and the K’tuvim = Writings) no matter if it is question of the prophetic books, or the Psalms or the Proverbs, it is always Tzedek that stands for truth and justice. This is very natural, since the People of Israel and through them; the entire humankind received the Truth over there on the Mount Sinai. The People met the Emet who gave them the Tzedek so that they live within the knowledge of the Law and Truth, and also in its appliance!  In every book of the Old Testament, Israel as People but also all individuals must put the Tzedek in action, in a word: they must become tzadikim themselves.
Thus we can observe that this Tzedek, this truth without the acts is only partial and incomplete. This truth will only be functioning when men will learn to live it. Although all this is only possible through the exercise and the respect of the Law.   
The Bible often uses the word Tzedek together with the word mishpat which means judgment. The truth of God appears here as a judgment, as the judgment of sin, of rebelliousness and of illegality, opposing so the Absolute Truth to the absolute lie, the Life to the death, the Light to the darkness. In these cases truth or justice is the judgment of the Evil, the judgment of Satan.  

Emuna

Most of the time this word appears to define faith and faithfulness. It is a matter of the form of truth which is the reflection of the Emet and the Tzeded on men. It is the truth of God appearing through us and having a double sense. From one hand, the one coming from God and testifying his faithfulness towards us, and in the other hand, the one emanating from us which confirms his Emet and his Tzedek. In a word, it is the testimony of our faith in Him.  
It appears generally in a context where God administers justice by his love and grace. Whereas in the case of Tzedek where it was the sin and the disrespect of the Law that were judged, here it is the Tzadikim themselves who are judged and thus taken off the misery by making them feel His presence, faithfulness and love towards them. Here God’s truth is more the testimony and the confirmation of those who are faithful to Him.  
For example, when we read about the faithfulness of God towards His People in David’s Psalms, he just talks about this truth, this Emuna. Or, when the prophets ask God so that he will comfort His People by His justice, it is also Emuna which is mentioned.

And if we look at these three forms of truth-justice, that after all is only one truth, we can see that it is no other than the Holy Trinity itself!
- The Eternal, the Emet who is the God of Existence, the impalpable Absolute Truth which is spiritual and impenetrable. He is the past, the present and the future. He is the One that eye had not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man and before whom no one is worthy of appear. He is the One whose name is Holy. He is the unspeakable.  

- Yeshua HaMashiach is the Tzedek who was sent into this world by the Eternal to reveal himself to us as the Emet through Him. He sent us the Tzedek, the Justice the Truth, the One who put straight, who sets us in order and who justify us so that we could be able to walk in His truth and live ourselves as Tzadikim.  
He is the Tzedek who is always accompanied by the mishpat, the judgment, since it is through Yeshua that all sins and illegitimacies that separate me from God are unveiled.  
He is the Tzedek which is the Salvation itself, the Victory over Satan and death.   

- The Holy Spirit is the Emuna, since He is the One who brings comfort from the Father. He is the One who leads us during our life of disciple and through whom we feel the presence of God in everyday’s life. It is through the Emuna that we make the testimony of God and of his love.

Law and justice (truth)

 

These terms are also inseparables and do complete one another.   
It is very interesting to see how far trinity does also appear at the level of the Law. The Hebrew language also uses several words for Law and the same statement can be made in their case than in the one concerning the definition of justice/truth: these expressions are also not synonymous. They have different meanings. Let us also look at them more in details!

Torah –  תורה :

Meanings: doctrine, teaching, education, law, ordinance

Hucca – חוקה :

Meanings: law, decree, order, way of life, tradition, limit

Mitzva – מיצבה :

Meanings: divine commandment, each one of the laws-commandments, injunction, to give a mission…

Here, we can also see that, although the word Law appears each time, their further meanings however provide these words with different senses.

Torah:

For Jews, this word means the 5 books of Moses, the Pentateuch; the teaching that God gave to the People of Israel on the Mount of Sinai. Torah appears as a general word which means the Teaching itself. For this part, this Teaching does educate and give orders.

Hucca:

The law here appears as commandments. In a word, everything that has been written must happen and be fulfilled, and has to be brought to life. Hucca shows and explains the meaning of a given law, how to live and respect it.  

Mitzva:

When the written law becomes law in acts; when law becomes a commandment: Do it!

What does it have to do with the triple essence of the word justice/truth?

The Holy Trinity!

Since the Law, the Teaching is the Eternal himself.
Hucca is the command that gives me concrete explanations so that I can understand the Teaching, Yeshua HaMashiach. Because it is through Yeshua that I am able to be in connection with the Father; He is the one who fulfills the Law, the Torah and who make me understandable all that was unclear since then. He is the One who unveils all my limits throughout the process of sanctification by putting order in spirit in my soul, my spirit, my thoughts, my feelings and my body. He does bring Torah to life in me. 
Mitzva for its part is no other than the Holy Spirit through the leading of which all this process is realized and becomes testimony in the visible world too. A life that witnesses God is no other than the mitzva lived everyday together with the constant leading of the Holy Spirit when the letter does not simply get to life in me, but does also become active in my life.  

We can state from this moment that Law and Truth are no other than the Holy Trinity that is One, but each part of it has different characteristics and work.  
The Eternal who is the Absolute Existence, the Emet is the Teaching that manages this world. He gave us Yeshua HaMashiach, the Tzedek and the Hucca so that we may understand and really live the Torah of God and his Emet. In a word: His law and His truth. And finally the Holy Spirit, the Emuna, the Mitzva who makes visible in us all things before the eyes of our neighbors and of the entire world.  


Truth and Justice in the New Testament:

It is interesting to see how these words appear in the New Testament.   
If we look at the Gospels, Matthew, Marc and Lucas always use Tzedek. When they report the teachings, the cures, the miracles, the death and resurrection of Yeshua and when they mention truth or justice in the text, it is the word Tzedek which is used each time.  
However in John, the situation is quiet different. Here, we never meet the word Tzedek. When he writes about truth and justice, he always uses emet.
And now, we again have to stop a bit to think and ask: Why? 

The first three Gospels mainly present Yeshua as Tzadik by putting the emphasis on the fact that during his earthly life, He was the one sent by God into the world to judge and deliver the People of Israel and the whole humankind from their sins. And that is it also through Him that the people can come to know God, the Emet. He is the Tzadik, the one who brings the Salvation; He is the one who defeated the Lye by His Truth and the Death by His Life.   

John does not write in the same style as the three other authors anymore when talking about Yeshua. For him it is no longer proving the character of Tzadik of Yeshua that is important but rather to show Him as the Emet, the King Messiah which is equal to the Eternal, who is One with the Absolute Truth, with the God of the Existence. John does no longer talk about the Saviour but rather about the King who is the same as the Emet. He speaks about the One who always was from the beginning of times and will be for ever one with Him. For John, it is not the person of the Saviour that is important but rather the one of the Anointed King who rules. In John, time stops and it is a matter of this genuine spiritual state that is also waiting for us at the end of our trip here on earth.   

If we look to the rest of the New Testament, from the Acts, through the Epistles, nor Paul nor Peter nor James do no longer use the word Emet to define Yeshua but they all use the word Tzadik again.  
Emet in only used to point Yeshua in John. The reason is quite clear, but why?  
John starts his Gospel with these words: "the Word became flesh…". In other words, the Emet turned to Tzedek! God gave himself to the world in Yeshua; He gave the Emet as the Tzedek so that through the Holy Spirit, through Emuna, we can recognize Him: the Unique One in this Trinity.   

This way, there was no more need to proof that the Trinity is One, that the Holy Trinity is indivisible nor in Acts nor in any Epistle! Since they all understood it and saw it because they lived and experienced this Trinity day by day in their own life. The Kingdom of Heaven and its functioning were no more a question for them. The proof had already been made that He is the Messiah and that the Emet is one with the Tzedek.  

As in Paul’s letters as in the others, the word truth and justice comes back using alternately Tzedek and Emet, but always followed and completed by Emuna. It means that the Eternal God and Yeshua appear successively but always accompanied by the Holy Spirit. 
Emet is usually used when talking of creation, new creation, birth or bearing again. Tzedek for its part stands for purification, redemption. And Emuna, the Holy Spirit is constantly present no matter if it is one or the other expression that is used.  

What is the Truth then?

We just have seen that the trinity of the words Emet - Tzedek - Emuna appears alternatively all along the Bible. However, this brief draft of the subject would really be too short to analyze all verses of the Scriptures that contain further messages if we know the essence of these expressions dissipating this way the lack of the different translations or simply the misunderstandings coming from the lack of knowledge of the Jewish mind on behalf of the translators. May this teaching be an introduction to our further lectures of the verses of the Bible in which, the lack of knowledge and the bad use of the words law, justice and justification can lead to many conflicts.   

May this writing be also an introduction so that we may always recognize and find the right way and the truth among the maze of our everyday’s life, so that the Emuna, the Holy Spirit may always be with us. May the Spirit comfort us, strengthen us and make us feel the presence and the fidelity of God towards us. May also the Tzedek always be here: Yeshua HaMashiach who bring His Life and Justice to life in us and put it in use, so bringing us closer and closer to the Father, to the Emet, to the Eternal God…

2008-09-05

 

 

 

 

Translated from hungarian by Richard (Zeev Shlomo)

 

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