The blessings by Jacob of his sons on his death bed sound more like a scolding for their behavior than a blessing. According to the writings of our Rabbis, this portion is rich with Messianic prophecy. Some say that Manasseh and Ephraim were blessed by Jacob and chosen for the inheritance because they were the only two siblings who didn't fight and they kept their identity as Jews.

As an aside, every Shabbat for thousands of years we have been using the blessing for our children which Jacob bestowed upon them…"May God make you as Manasseh and Ephraim…" Genesis 48: 20. Their mother was Asenath, the daughter of the Egyptian priest and thus a pagan. If the fact what the Rabbis hold to be true, that being Jewish comes from the mother, then Manasseh and Ephraim were not Jewish. I will do a full teaching on this in a future drash.

One of the greatest issues that we as believers in Messiah are facing today, is that after 2000 years of Christianity we have been looking at the Savior from the perspective of his being the gentile "Christ" instead of who he really is …the Jewish Messiah. Let me give you an example of what I mean by using George Washington. People have an idealist understanding of who he really was. Very few know anything about his life. If you delve into history, you will find that it was rewritten to embellish the facts so that he looks larger than life. In actuality he owned slaves and did many things which were not nice. So if this can be done to the personality of George Washington over a 400 year period, imagine what has been done over a 2000 year period to Yeshua ha Mashiach by turning him into a foreign god whose name now is Jesus Christ.

When we say to people that Messiah was born, deity becoming flesh, for many this means nothing; but when you say "Christ", then people understand because it has given a gentile persona. For Jews this means little. As Jews we can only relate to the "Christ" through whom we were persecuted, tortured and massacred.

Today Messianic Jews are being labeled as revisionists trying to rewrite history. What we are actually trying to do is to rewrite what has already written in order to make it right. Unfortunately many Messianic Jews have overwritten and overcompensated in their desire to prove Christians wrong. This is also not right.

When we read a book, we don't start from the back and end at the beginning. That unfortunately is what many Christian Theologians have tried to do when proving that Jesus is the Messiah. Martin Buber (Jewish Theologian) was not too fond of eschatology; for him the prophets spoke to reveal what was necessary and relevant to their own times. In commenting about this portion concerning the blessings from Jacob to his children, Buber repeats what the Rabbis have said for centuries - the Holy Spirit departed from Jacob when he was prophesying about the end times. (MIdrash Bereshit Rabba, par 98)

A major principle of interpreting Scripture is that no one has the right to change the Word of God. Rabbi Hanin said that the only way we can know the identity of Messiah as Jewish people is when God reveals it to us (MIdrash Bereshit Rabba & Metanot Kehuna). People can read and even study the Tenach (Old Testament) and not see Messiah in it if God does not reveal it to them. Yeshua asked his talmidim, "Who do you say that I am?" and quickly Shimon Kefas (Peter) responded "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Yeshua said to him, how blessed you are. For no human being revealed this to you, it was my father in heaven" (Matthew 16:16). Later in 2 Peter 1:19-21 we see that prophecy is never a matter of personal interpretation but only comes as a result of people being moved by the Ruach ha Kodesh (Holy Spirit).

The message of Yeshua being the Messiah is an ancient one, long before the Messianic Writings (New Testament) ever went into print. It is not a new idea. God didn't go from Plan A (the story of Adam and Eve) where He failed, to Plan B (Noah and the ark) where again he failed to Plan C (Abraham to Moses saving our people from slavery) where He failed again right up to the time of Jesus Christ, where "Eureka, I finally got it right…I'll create a Savior for the world!"

We read in Genesis 49: 8-12, the blessing of Judah. "The scepter will not pass from Judah nor the ruler's staff from the between his feet until Shiloh comes." The Jewish Messianic understanding of this text come from the Targumim; Targum Onkelos says of Judah's scepter that it will not depart "until the Messiah comes, he who has the power to reign". Targum Jonathan says "the age of the Messiah King, the King who will come as the youngest of his children". Targum Yerushalmi speaks of the "time when the Messiah King will come". When Yeshua came to Jerusalem, the Jewish people had already long heard about Messiah's coming from the prophecies. It was God's revelation to them, not a theological principle!

Many Christians do not read the rabbis because they do not believe that God has revealed anything to them because they do not have the Ruach ha Kodesh. In my readings of their midrashic writings, I have found that they go far beyond the level of what the average gentile can understand of prophecy. For example, in Gematria, the study of numbers, every Hebrew letter has a numerical value. The ki yavoh Shiloh hlys aby (until Messiah comes) is 358, Mashiach xysm is 358 and even nachash sxn (snake) is 358 referring to the one who will crush the snake. The rabbis draw their conclusions from these and various prophets to build the case for messiah… the one who will bring peace, unknown to Christian Theology from shilo we arrive at shalev = peaceable and from shalev to shalvah = peace, and also, from shilo derives the word Moshlo= 'their ruler' then, to be the ruler forever etc. The rabbis, especially Rashi wrote about this that Shiloh, He is the Messiah-King and his (shelo) is sovereign power. This is how Onkelos understood the matter…"(Mikraoth Gedoloth) .

This parashah helps us to know that it is not our wishful thinking which will bring the Messiah. From the very beginning God promised us peace, the restoration of humanity and that Messiah would be the instrument through which He would accomplish this.

This can bring us comfort in the midst of the daily upsets that we face. If we do not have the peace that Yeshua brings, it is because we are not trusting in His ability to do all that He said He would do from the beginning. Our faith is based on wishful thinking instead of true hope in the God of Israel.

     Rabbi Percy Johnson
     [nxy [b lantn

     © 2007 Use by Permission

     Kehilat She’ar Yashuv