I've Got to Hand It to You

Take a few minutes greeting everyone in the room. For the first half of the people, shake (or hold) hands while greeting them; for the second half of the people, do not shake (or hold hands), or hug them, or have other physical contact with them.

After you have greeted everyone, you can begin the rest of the lesson.

Last week we learned that—in Hebrew—love (chiba) and obligation (chova) are closely related. Remember the song of Tevye & Golde from Fiddler on the Roof? They loved each other, but their love was expressed through obligation to each other rather than passion. This word group also includes a Hebrew word for friend (chaver—remember pay attention to the consonants). A friend is someone to whom you are obligated, and in turn is obligated to you.

However, chaver is not the only Hebrew word for friend. A second word for friend is yedid. In Hebrew, a single Hebrew letter may be transliterated as “y”, “i’, or “j”—so for the purposes of this lesson, yedid might also be spelled YDYD. The Hebrew word for a single hand is yad, or YD.

What do you notice about the words for friend (YDYD) and hand (YD)?

What idioms do we have in English involving hands?

Consider Isaiah 41:8-14

Note the places where a hand is mentioned. Whose hands are involved?

Is God Israel’s friend? What reasons do you have from the text for your answer?

Are you a friend? Rabbi Daniel Lapin writes, “Having friends is a great blessing. The rabbis of old who wrote their transmissions in Ethics of the Fathers advise us to always to working at acquiring a new friend. Good advice it is, and not terribly difficult to do either. First, seek out obligations to undertake. Find new and unexpected ways to help other people, even if they did not ask for your help. Especially if they did not ask for your help! ... In this way, the seamless web of social connectivity grows and strengthens, allowing the blessing of friendship and love to bring happiness and prosperity to all. (Buried Treasure, p 28) To whom will you be a friend?

What's Love Got to Do with It?

Tevye: Do you love me?

Golde: Do I what?

Tevye: Do you love me?

Golde: Do I love you? With our daughters getting married and this trouble in the town, you're upset, you're worn out. Go inside, go lie down! Maybe it's indigestion!

Tevye: Golde I'm asking you a question ... Do you love me?

Golde: You're a fool.

Tevye: I know ... But do you love me?

Golde: Do I love you? For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow ... After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?

Tevye: Golde, the first time I met you was on our wedding day. I was scared.

Golde: I was shy.

Tevye: I was nervous.

Golde: So was I.

Tevye: But my father and my mother said we'd learn to love each other, and now I'm asking, Golde ... Do you love me?

Golde: I'm your wife.

Tevye: I know ... But do you love me?

Golde: Do I love him? For twenty-five years I've lived with him, fought him, starved with him. Twenty-five years my bed is his. If that's not love, what is?

Tevye: Then you love me?

Golde: I suppose I do.

Tevye: And I suppose I love you too.

Both: It doesn't change a thing, but even so, after twenty-five years it's nice to know! (“Do You Love Me?” from Fiddler on the Roof)

Are Tevye and Golde in love? What evidence do you have to support your answer?

How does their love differ from the way the world usually talks about love?

1 John 5:3a says, “This is love for God: to obey his commands.” List as many interpretations as you can for this verse.

How do you decide which interpretation is correct?

In Hebrew, the word for loving affection is chiba and the word for obligation is chova (in Hebrew, as in English, the “b” and “v” sounds are very similar; in Hebrew, they are the same letter!). Read 1 John 5:1-5.

What does it mean to love, to obey, and to overcome the world?

What is your obligation to God, your neighbor, and yourself?

Where do you need to overcome the world within your own life?

Windows to the Soul

One day, an adviser to President Lincoln brought to the White House a man whom he thought Lincoln should appoint as a cabinet secretary. The president met with the man and interviewed him. After the guest left the White House, Lincoln called his adviser into the Oval Office and said, “This man won’t do for the job.”

“Why not?” the adviser asked.

“I don’t like his face.”

“B-b-but—“ stammered the adviser, “that’s unfair! A man can’t help what his face looks like.”

“You’re right,” the president replied. “Up to age forty, he can’t. After age forty, his face is him.”

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Buried Treasure

In Hebrew, words with the same consonants are usually related and they are frequently pronounced similarly. In fact, the Hebrew scriptures frequently play with words that sound similar ... in Hebrew! (Usually these puns do not translate well into English.) The Hebrew word for “face” is panim, while p’nim is the Hebrew word for “inside.” You have heard the old saying, “The eyes are the windows of the soul,” but in Hebrew one concludes that the face is the window to the soul.

What idioms do we have in English about faces?

It is usually an insult to say that someone is two-faced (Was that one of your idioms?). However, do you show the same face at church as at home, at work, with strangers, while shopping? Panim is actually a plural noun, so in Hebrew it is expected that you have more than one face. After all, you are complicated! What are some of your faces?

Jacob Wrestles With God: Genesis 32:22-30

Notes:
“Jacob” means “grasper” or “deceiver”.
“Israel” means “he wrestles with God.”
“Peniel” means “face of God.”

What faces did Jacob have?
What did God see in Jacob’s face?
What did Jacob see in God’s face?
What is the significance of the other man remaining unnamed?

Closing Thought: There is no word in Hebrew for “hero.” Moshe Dayan, the Jewish military leader, was a great soldier, but also an adulterer and a man with serious flaws. Ariel Sharon said of Dayan, “He would wake up with a hundred ideas. Of them ninety-five were dangerous; three more were bad; the remaining two, however, were brilliant.” If a hero is somebody we could profitably imitate, perhaps the lesson of panim is that everyone is too complex to imitate completely (and perhaps you are too complex to be a total failure at everything).