Beth HaDerech; Messianic Jewish Congregation, Toronto, Canada

Hebrew – The Language of the Soul

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1) Now, when one reads the verse above in English, it sounds very straightforward.  However, if you read the same verse in Hebrew (the original language of Torah) you get so much more.  Let us look at the same verse in Hebrew. בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ. It is important to remember that Hebrew, unlike English, is read right to left.  Now, let us transliterate the verse into English.  Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another.  The verse above would be transliterated as follows, reading from right to left: Bereshit Barah Elohim, et hashamayim v’et haaretz.  That is how an English person can understand the Hebrew pronunciation on this verse.  Now let us literally translate the verse into English from the Hebrew.  I will use brackets below each word. בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ. (the earth) (and et), (the heavens) (et), (the judge) (created out of nothing) , (In the beginning) Unique Language Biblical Hebrew, also known as "Lashon Kodesh" (The Holy Tongue) is a unique language. It is the only language whose letters communicate meaning independent of the words they form. In most languages letters don't have independent value. They don’t communicate...