PirkeiAvinu_Lesson2

8/12/2019 PirkeiAvinu_Lesson2

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Section One: The Foolin His Folly

Section Two:Prayingfor Wisdom

Section Three:LessonStudies & Discussion

Section Four:Write anarticle for FFOZ

Lesson Two:

PRAYINGFORWISDOM

2

007FirstFruitsofZion.

2007 First Fruits of Zion. We welcome you to print up to five copies for personal or congregational use. Please contact FFOZ torequest additional copies. This document is a complimentary study resource for myffozmembers and their families.

Join myffozfree at myffoz.org. Myffozmembership is a like a free key that opens the online door to an ever-growing treasure vault of keyword-

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PRAYINGFORWISDOM

by Boaz Michael,

FFOZ Founder and Director

W

hats your name? What do people

call you? Do you have nickname? AHebrew name? A middle-name? Heres

what the sages say about names:

A person has three names: the one

that his father and mother call him,

the one that his fellows call him

[e.g., how people talk about him],

and one that he requires [by the way

he acts]. And the last one is better

than all others.(Tanhuma Va-Yakel #1)

In this months issue of Pirkei Avinu, we aregoing to learn about how to acquire wisdom andhow to acquire a good name in the process.

THEFOOLINHISFOLLYIt sounds pretty simple. Study Torah, listen to

your parents and teachers and youll be wise. Itsounds like wisdom can simply be obtained likea piece of property. But, it really does not work

that wayits not that simple.Its not difficult to learn Torah, but its difficult

to do it. Its not difficult to have parents, but itsdifficult to obey them and honor them. Its nothard to find smart teachers, but its not alwaysso easy to really learn from them. Somethingalways seems to get in the way.

For example, have you ever said to yourself,From now on Im going to pray and read myBible every day? The first day you start off withlots of commitment. The next day your backat it, but on the third day, a busy morning or

unexpected interruption makes you forget. Onthe fourth day, you think to yourself, I dont feellike it right now, Ill do it later. By the end of theweek, youve given up. What happened?

Another example. Your parents give you anunpleasant chore to do, like cleaning up some-one elses mess. It seems unfair and unpleasant,so you avoid doing it right away. Later whenthey nag you about it, it irritates you, so you feel

resentful while doing the chore and do a poorjob. They complain, and this makes you feel evenmore resentful and perhaps, you allow yourself

to argue with them. You never meant to dishonoryour parents. Somehow, it just happened. TheProverbs say,

A fool rejects his fathers discipline

(Proverbs 15:5).

A third example. You are sitting in the congre-gation, attempting to listen while the teacher isbringing a word of Torah. You feel sleepy though,and besides, hes boring and it doesnt reallyseem like anything hes saying is important or

matters to you. Your mind wanders. Soon you arethinking about other things. When the teach-ing is finally over, you dont really rememberwhat it was about. You never meant to ignore theteacher, but week after week, thats what hap-pens. The Proverbs say,

REVIEW:WISDOMFROMABOVE

In the last issue of Pirkei Avinuwe dis-cussed the source of wisdom. God is the

source of true wisdom, and His wisdom isrevealed through His Torah.

Remember the picture that illustratedthe lesson? The drawing tried to imaginethe wisdom of God floating down fromheaven into His Torah where it is revealedto us and made available to us. In 2 Timo-thy 3:1617, Paul said that the Torah is thesource of Gods teaching, reproof, correc-tion, and that it trains in righteousness.

We learned that God teaches us Hiswisdom through the study of His Torah,

through the instruction of our parents andthrough the guidance of righteous teachersHe places in our lives.

Torah Parents Teachers

PIRKEIAVINU The Sayings of our Father

2 Lesson Two: PRAYINGFORWISDOM

2007 First Fruits of Zion. We welcome you to print up to five copies for personal or congregational use. Please contact FFOZ to request additional copies. Thisdocument is a complimentary study resource for myffozmembers and their families. Join myffozfree at myffoz.org. Myffozmembership is a like a free key that opens the

online door to an ever-growing treasure vault of keyword-searchable bible study helps and articles. Myffozmembers also receive exclusive weekly and monthly Torah teachings suchas the popular eDrashand eRosh.


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When we admit to ourselves that we are actu-ally fools, then we are ready to start learningwisdom.

Furthermoreand perhaps most impor-tantlythe light of godly wisdom can only beacquired through the work of Gods Spirit. Davidprays,

Open my eyes, that I may behold

wonderful things from Your Torah

(Psalm 119:18).

This can be explained in a story:

ILLGRANTYOUONEWISHKing Solomon was the wisest man that ever

lived. The Bible says that God gave Solomonwisdom and very great discernment and breadthof mind, like the sand that is on the seashore (1Kings 4:29) and that His wisdom surpassed thatof all the wise men of the east. He created 3,000proverbs, and Men came from all peoples tohear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kingsof the earth who had heard of his wisdom (1Kings 4:34). Many of the proverbs in the book ofproverbs were written by Solomon.

However, he did not start out so wise. The storyis that when he took the throne of Israel, God

appeared to him in a dream and offered him onewish. Ask what you wish me to give you, theLORD said to Solomon. What would you ask for ifyou had one wish? Money, power, fame, long life,health, good looks, triumph and victory, theseare the sorts of things that the flesh would wishfor. Solomon, however, humbled himself andasked for wisdom. To paraphrase the passage,he said, I am like a little child that doesnt evenknow how to take care of himself, how muchless the thousands of people that I am king over.Please give me an understanding heart to dis-cern between good and evil.

God was so pleased with this choice that hegave Solomon not only wisdom, but also thewealth, power and fame that he did not ask for.You can read the story yourself in 1 Kings 3:1-15.

For the waywardness of the nave

and the complacency of fools will

destroy them (Proverbs 1:32).

These are pretty innocent examples of everyday things we might do, but the same thing thatcauses these innocent little failings will causemuch bigger problems in our lives further downthe line. The Proverbs say,

A fool displays folly.

(Proverbs 13:16)

All of these examples fall into the categorythat the Bible calls folly. In the Bible, folly doesnot mean stupidity and a fool is not a silly

person. Instead, folly is unrighteousness anddisobedience. A fool is an undisciplined or evena wicked person. It turns out that all of us arepretty full of foolishness.

This is a big problem because folly leads todestruction. It results in empty hearts, shattereddreams and meaningless lives.

THEMINDOFTHEFLESHWhere does all this folly come from? Its called

the flesh. In the Bible, the word flesh meansour natural, normal human state. Paul says,

the mind set on the flesh is hostile

toward God; for it does not subject

itself to the Torah of God, for it is not

even able to do so (Romans 8:7).

Our fleshly state is opposed to Gods Torah andwisdom. We do not appreciate its value, its role,and its importance in our lives. We humans arefools by nature.

The first step in acquiring wisdom requires us

to recognize that we are fools. It requires a littlehumility. The Proverbs say,

Do you see a man wise in his own

eyes? There is more hope for a fool

than for him (Proverbs 26:12).






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PRAYINGFORWISDOMLike Solomon, we can pray for wisdom too. The

daily prayer, a prayer called the Amidah (a litur-gical prayer that is prayed three times a day bythe devout) contains prayers for wisdom. In oneform or another, this prayer has its beginnings

with the prophet Ezra, and has been prayed bythe people of God for many centuries.

Wisdom is the top of the list, the very first thingwe ask for from God in the prayer. Lets take alook at the prayer for wisdom:

You grant knowledge to man, and teach dis-cernment to a mortal. Grant us wisdom, discern-ment and knowledge from You. Blessed are You,O LORD, who grants knowledge. (Fourth benedic-tion of the Amidah, Sephardic Version)

This prayer asks for three things: Wisdom, dis-

cernment and knowledge. Whats the difference?

WISDOMCHOCHMAHSome people are just smarter than other

people. There are several words in Scripture thatare used to describe types of, what we think ofas, mental capacity. But wisdom is not a matterof how smart a person is. An A+ Trigonometrystudent is not necessarily a wise person.

The Hebrew word for wisdom is chochmah.In the Bible, wisdom is the ability to perceiveand practice truth. Truth, of course, is the Word

of God itself. Thus, the words wise and righ-teous are synonyms in Scripture, in much thesame way that fool and wicked person meanthe same thing.

DISCERNMENTBINAHSome people have a natural talent for making

good choices. We refer to them as lucky. Theychoose the winning numbers. They choose thefaster checkout lane at the grocery store. The bib-lical concept of discernment is not luck though.It is a matter of making biblical distinctions and

making godly choices.The Hebrew word for discernment is binah.

It is related to the word bein, which meansbetween. Binahis the ability to distinguishbetween one thing and another. To have binahisto be able to accurately divideto discern.

God demonstrated binahin making the world.He separated between the light and the dark-ness. He separated the seas from the dry land.

He separated the waters below from the watersabove. He separated the seventh day from the sixdays of labor. God separates between holy andcommon, and between Israel and the nations,between clean and unclean, between right and

wrong. God gave instructions not to mix woolwith linen, to sow a field with two types of seed,or to yoke together two types of animals.

Thus, God is understood as the mavdil, theone who separates, the one who makes adistinction. And so, on Saturday nights afterthe Sabbath closes, in addition to the havdalahceremony, a short blessing is inserted during thisblessing for binahthat recognizes this fact aboutGod.

You have granted us the knowledge

of Your Torah, and You have taught

us to carry out the statutes of Your

will, and You have separated, O

LORD our God, between holy and

common things, between light and

darkness, between Israel and the

peoples, between the seventh day

and the six days of labor. Our Father,

our King, begin these days for us

that are coming to greet us for peace;may we be devoid of all sin, cleansed

from all iniquity and attached to

fear of You.

Following this pattern, we are also called tomake distinctions. We are to imitate God andreflect His holiness. This can only be donewithin the context of maintaining the distinc-tions established in the Word of God. We are todistinguish between clean and unclean, holy andunholy, and right and wrong. We are also to sus-

tain the biblical distinctions between man andwoman, Israel and the nations, the Father andHis son, and between the various legal sanctionsof the commandments.






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The Spirit of the LORD will rest

on Him, The spirit of wisdom and

understanding, The spirit of counsel

and strength, The spirit of knowl-

edge and the fear of the LORD.

(Isaiah 11:2)

And so we, as imitators of our Master and aspeople who have been given the same Spirit,should exhibit the same qualities as Yeshua.Colossians 1:910 states:

For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, wehave not ceased to pray for you and to ask that youmay be filled with the knowledge of His will in allspiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you

will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to pleaseHim in all respects, bearing fruit in every good workand increasing in the knowledge of God.

In Ephesians 1:17, Paul recognizes that thesource, the beginning place of understanding isprompted by Gods spirit. He prays for us, thatthe God of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, theFather of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdomand of revelation in the knowledge of Him.

And so we seek Gods wisdomwhich is differ-ent from worldly wisdomJames teaches us:

Who among you is wise and understanding? Let

him show by his good behavior his deeds in thegentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousyand selfish ambition in your heart, do not bearrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdomis not that which comes down from above, but isearthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy andselfish ambition exist, there is disorder and everyevil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure,then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and

good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And theseed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace bythose who make peace. (James 3:1318)

KNOWLEDGEDAATSome people are well studied, have good

memories and retain information better thanothers. They always win at games like trivialpursuit. They have lots of knowledge stored up intheir brains. But the biblical concept of knowl-

edge is different.The Hebrew word translated as knowledge is

daat. Daatgoes beyond mere acquisition of factsand information. Daatis more like making aconnection. Mentally, this is the ability to con-ceptualize, that is, to draw a connection betweenones mind and a concept.

In a broader sense, though, daatis an intimateconnection and relationship, such as the con-nection between a man and his wife. In Gen-esis, it says that Adam knew his wife Eve andshe conceived. It doesnt mean he knew about

herhe really knew her. Most importantly, it canbe used to describe our relationship with God.God says to Moses, I have known you by name.In Jeremiah 31, the promise of the New Covenantsays that everyone will know the Lord.

GIVEMEWISDOM, DISCERNMENTANDKNOWLEDGE

Wisdom, discernment and knowledge are giftsof the Holy Spirit. For example, one of the work-ers in the Tabernacle was Betzalel, of whom Godsays,

I have filled him with the Spirit of

God in wisdom, in understanding,

in knowledge, and in all kinds of

craftsmanship. (Exodus 31:3)

This can be recognized even among pagans.We read in the Book of Daniel, chapter 5:

Then Daniel was brought in before the king. Theking spoke and said to Daniel, Are you that Danielwho is one of the exiles from Judah, whom my father

the king brought from Judah? Now I have heardabout you that a spirit of the gods is in you, and thatillumination, insight and extraordinary wisdomhave been found in you. (Daniel 5:1314)

The Messiah himself is prophesied to havethese properties because of the anointing Spiritof God upon him.






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SO, WHOISWISE?Understanding wisdom from a Hebrew per-

spective changes its meaning. The word seeswisdom as synonymous with intelligence,knowledge or education; but the Hebraic view ofwisdom is synonymous with obedience. In the

Bible, wickedness is the opposite of wisdom, andfolly or stupidity is the opposite of righteousness.

Genesis Rabbah 44:1 states that, The Torahscommandments were not given to mankind forany purpose other than to refine people. Thatmeans that the Torah was not given to us for thepurposes of head-knowledge. It was given to usto make us into better people. This can only beaccomplished through application and obedi-ence. Thats the biblical meaning of wisdom.

When R. Akavia ben Mehalalel was dying, his sonwas fearful that, once his father died, he would

lose his status among the Sages, and he thereforebeseeched him: Father, commend me to yourcolleagues. When R. Akavia refused to do so, his sonasked, Is it because of some fault you have found inme? R. Akavia answered: No. It is your deeds [andnot my words] that will endear you [to the rabbis],and your deeds that will estrange you.(Mishnah Eduyot 5:7)

This illustrates the biblical, godly perspec-tive of wisdom. You will be wise and revealyour wisdom only through your deedsyourobedience to Gods commandments. Psalm

119:98 states; Your commandments make mewiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine.Remember the rabbinic passage that we beganthe lesson with?

A person has three names: the one

that his father and mother call him,

the one that his fellows call him [e.g.,

how people talk about him], and

one that he acquires [by the way he

acts]. And the last one is better than

all others. (Tanhuma Va-Yakel #1)

The third name, the one that he acquires by theway he acts, is better than all others if it results inbeing named a wise person, but it worse than allothers if it results in being named a fool.

It is impossible to learn wisdom from booksalone. Wisdom can best be learned through

watching and imitating the actions of righteousmen. True biblical wisdom is revealed in onesactions even more so than in the teachingsthat come from ones mouths. This is a difficultconcept to grasp because our minds are trained

from a very young age to associate wisdom withsmarts rather than with actions.

Paul says that the wisdom of God looks likefoolishness to the world, but if thats the case,then the foolishness of God is wiser than men(1 Corinthians 1:25). Some of the wisest peoplein this world do not look wise according to theworlds standards. They are wise because theywalk in obedience to Gods commandments;which, in the worlds eyes, renders them foolish.

Some of the richest people in this world donot have moneythey do not meet the worlds

standards for wealth; yet, they are wealthy. Theyare rich because of the grace that is evidenced intheir lives. They have the greatest of all posses-sions: love, peace, a hope through the Messiah,and a path of wisdom revealed in Gods Torah.

SUMMINGITUPIn summary, the wisdom of God is revealed to

us in and through His Torah. We reveal ourselvesto be wise through obedience to His words andnot by our head-smarts. True wisdom is revealedthrough application of Gods Word.

But our flesh is opposed to this wisdom. Whatcan we do? We need to humble ourselves, realizethat we are fools, and pray for wisdom, insightand discernment.

Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear

the LORD and turn away from evil.

(Proverbs 3:7)






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QUESTIONS:

1. What are the three areas of mentalcapacity from a Hebraic mindset?

2. What is the difference between the bibli-cal understanding of wisdom and theworlds? What is the key difference?

3. What are the similarities betweenthe fear of the Lord and biblicalwisdom?

DISCUSSTHECOVERILLUSTRATION:The Torah (Written and Living) is the way

of righteousness revealed by the LORD. In thepicture, the Torah contains three gates leadinginto the Holy Temple of God. What do the threegates represent?

DISCUSSIONTOPICS:

1. We closed this lesson of Pirkei Aveinuwith Proverbs 3:7. Discuss this versein light of last months teaching withspecific reference to 1 John 3:4.

2. Discuss the following quote: RabbiYaizel of Navorodock, taught, A personwants to become a scholar and a leaderovernight, and sleep that night as well.What do you think this means? Howdoes it apply to our discussion?

3. Discuss the outworking of the threeareas of knowledge from a Hebraicperspective: chochmah(wisdom), binah(understanding or discernment), anddaat(knowledge). Give practical exam-

ples of each.

WRITEANARTICLEFORFFOZI want to hear from you and give you the oppor-tunity to share your thoughts with thousandsof others around the world. You may makean impact for the Kingdom as you share yourthoughts and allow God to work through you tobring understanding to others.

Please write a short teaching article drawing

from the passages mentioned in this lesson.Creatively discuss the tension between follyand wisdom in your own life. Give a couple ofillustrations; have a solid opening and a com-pelling conclusion. We will select some of thearticles and publish them on our website andperhaps other FFOZ resources. Here are someparameters:

Article length: Maximum 2000 words

Due Date: Friday June 8th, 2007

Submit to:www.ffoz.org/eRoshupload





PirkeiAvinu_Lesson2

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