Welcome to Torah Today Ministries and our continuing series The Hebrew Key, where we look into something that is revealed only in the Hebrew language and does not appear in our English translations. However, this episode of The Hebrew Key is something you actually can follow along in your English translation. But I thought this teaching was important enough to do, and wasn’t quite sure which series to put it into, so I’m just including it here in The Hebrew Key series. So you’re not going to be learning much about Hebrew, but I think you’ll find the lesson to be a blessing. I hope it is, nevertheless.
If you’ve ever shared a Sabbath meal, a Friday evening meal — when the lady of the house lights two candles — and my wife Robin and many other ladies as well will remind us as they light the two Sabbath candles, they remind us that these candles represent the fact that God is our Creator and he’s our Redeemer. He makes us, but he also rescues us. It’s like an artisan who makes a great violin or this exquisite clock, and you need to take it back to him once in a while to have it repaired and maintained. And so God creates us, but he maintains us. He redeems us. He saves us and rescues us and puts us back into working condition.
And this is part of a blessing that is found as we drink from the cup and as we eat from the bread. There’s always a cup and then there’s bread — there’s a blessing over the cup, a blessing over the bread. But in between these two blessings, there’s this ancient part of the liturgy that is my favorite part for me when we go through the Friday evening service sitting around the table.
So after we’ve blessed the cup and drunk from that and sung “Shabbat Shalom” (שַׁבָּת שָׁלוֹם) and greeted one another, we say:
Blessed are you, Adonai (אֲדֹנָי), our God, King of the universe, who sanctified us with his commandments, took pleasure in us, and with love and favor gave us his holy Shabbat (שַׁבָּת) as a heritage and memorial of the creation — because, after all, God is our Creator — a day which is the beginning of our sacred gatherings, a memorial of our Exodus from Egypt — God is our Redeemer.
Now, if I can take a little rabbit trail — this answers a question I often get, and that is: as a Messianic believer, do you ever do communion? And the answer is yes and no. Mostly no, but then again I could say mostly yes. Let me explain.
You know, growing up in an Evangelical church, once a month we would have communion. And they’d pass out a little cup of juice, and they’d pass out a little morsel of bread. And we would meditate on what these mean, and there’d be some music in the background, and the pastor would just say some things, and we’d all eat the bread together, we’d all drink the juice together. And that was called communion. In Catholicism it’s called the Mass, and it takes on some other esoteric connotations.
But originally, in the scriptures, there was no communion. There was no Mass. There was Passover (פֶּסַח). And at the Passover you would have four cups of wine and you would have the matzah (מַצָּה), the unleavened bread. And we know that Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) was crucified on Passover. So at his final Seder (סֵדֶר), when he took the cup, he says, “This is my blood of the New Covenant.” When he took the bread — which we believe to be the afikomen (אֲפִיקוֹמָן) — he said, “This is my body, which is broken for you.”
So at the Passover Seder (סֵדֶר), the cup and the bread represent the blood and the body of the Passover Lamb. Well, Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) was crucified on Passover as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And so he gave new significance to the Passover Seder (סֵדֶר). He wasn’t introducing communion — he was giving new significance to the cup after the meal and the bread, saying, “Instead of just thinking about the Passover Lamb in Egypt, would you think of me? Because now everything pictured by that lamb is fulfilled in me — the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
Now, make sure you hear me on this — I am not at all against people doing communion. And if I am in a church or a group of believers and they’re going to observe communion, I observe it right along with them. It is a beautiful symbolic rite and it’s wonderful. There’s not a thing wrong with it. But we must understand what lies behind what is called communion. What lies behind it is the Passover Seder (סֵדֶר).
Here’s the problem with the Seder (סֵדֶר) — it only happens once a year. And I don’t want to have to wait a whole year to take the cup and the bread and to memorialize what our Messiah did for us. And likewise, in Jewish homes and homes where they don’t know Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ), they don’t want to wait a whole year either to commemorate what God did for them through the Passover Lamb in Egypt. So every Friday evening, they have what you might call a mini Passover Seder (סֵדֶר). And that’s why they say, when they take the cup and they take the bread, that this is a memorial of our Exodus from Egypt. And they think about the Passover Lamb that was slain in Egypt by each family, whose blood passed them from death to life, and whose body passed them from slavery to freedom.
And so likewise, on Friday evenings, when we take the cup and the bread, we thank God for being our Creator and for being our Redeemer. We think of Messiah.
Okay, so let’s get back on track with this — “Bookends of Blessings.” Now I want us to look at the very first sign, or first miracle, that Messiah performed. It’s in John chapter 2, verses 7 through 11. I know this will be familiar to you:
Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) said to the servants — you know, they’re at this wedding feast, they’ve run out of wine — so he says to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” They filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” — John 2:7–8a
I wonder how they felt. You know, they’re thinking, “Why are we taking water to the master of the feast?” Because the master of the feast was like the Master of Ceremonies, and he would perform the blessing over the wine. And they’re thinking, “What’s he going to do when he gets this — it’s just water?” But they followed orders.
So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from — though the servants who had drawn the water knew — the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) did at Cana (קָנָה) in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. — John 2:8b–11
Now, this being a new batch of wine, the Master of Ceremonies would have said a blessing over the wine. It’s the same exact blessing we make over the cup of wine on Erev Shabbat (עֶרֶב שַׁבָּת). And here is the blessing:
Baruch atah Adonai (בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אֲדֹנָי), Eloheinu (אֱלֹהֵינוּ) Melekh ha’olam (מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם), borei p’ri hagafen (בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּפֶן) — Blessed are you, Adonai (אֲדֹנָי), our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.
So I want you to think a moment. Put yourself in the place of these servants and the disciples who watched all this happen. They saw water placed in these jugs, water drawn out, taken up to the Master of Ceremonies. And the Master of Ceremonies would have said, “Blessed are you, Adonai (אֲדֹנָי), our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.”
But who created this wine? It was Messiah. It was Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ). And the servants and the disciples would have been in on the secret. Because they would have looked at Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ), who created this wine. They would have heard the blessing — “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, who creates the fruit of the vine.” They would have been looking at Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) in a whole different way, wouldn’t they? And this is the first of the miracles, the first of the signs, that Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) did.
Now, what I want us to do is go to the other end of Yeshua’s (יֵשׁוּעַ) ministry — after his death, his burial, and his resurrection. And in Luke, we read the story of Resurrection Day. And there are some disciples — we don’t know which ones they were, what their names were — they’re heading back to Emmaus. And Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) joins them. But I like the way the King James puts it — it says “their eyes were holden.” In other words, they didn’t recognize him. And this was on purpose.
After Yeshua’s (יֵשׁוּעַ) resurrection, there are several examples of people who knew him and saw him but did not recognize him at first. It’s because he was beginning to wean them away from the physicality of knowing him, and he wanted them to know him in a more spiritual, in a deeper way.
Anyways, he asked them, “Oh, what are you talking about?” And they looked at him, shocked — “Well, haven’t you heard?” And they begin to tell him about Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ), who was crucified and buried and rose from the dead that morning — not realizing this is Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) who’s walking with them.
And beginning with Moses — that would be the Torah (תּוֹרָה) — and the Nevi’im (נְבִיאִים), the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. — Luke 24:27
And they still don’t know who he is.
So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. — Luke 24:28–29
And so they give him the privilege here of making the bracha (בְּרָכָה), making the blessing over the bread. It says:
When he was at table with them, he took the bread and made a blessing. — Luke 24:30a
What is the blessing he said? The exact same blessing that is said today when we eat bread. It is said every Friday evening, after we’ve taken the cup and before we eat the bread. And we chant it together:
Baruch atah Adonai (בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אֲדֹנָי), Eloheinu (אֱלֹהֵינוּ) Melekh ha’olam (מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם), hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz (הַמּוֹצִיא לֶחֶם מִן הָאָרֶץ) — Blessed are you, Adonai (אֲדֹנָי), our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.
Who’s the bread of life? Who had just come out of the earth that very day? It was Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ).
And so, back to our passage:
He took the bread and made a blessing and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. — Luke 24:30b–31
He was still there — but he’s there in a way that they couldn’t see with physical eyes. But they recognized him with spiritual eyes.
So what we see here is that Yeshua’s (יֵשׁוּעַ) ministry began with a blessing over wine, and his ministry kind of ends with this blessing over bread. And that’s why I call this “The Bookends of Blessings.”
The wine. The bread. The life and the body of Messiah. Through his blood, he passes us from death to life. And through his body — the strength that it gives us — we walk from slavery to freedom.
And so I just hope that the next time you’re maybe in a church or a Christian group and they do communion, or this next Friday night when my family and I will do the blessings over the cup and the bread at our Erev Shabbat (עֶרֶב שַׁבָּת) table — I hope you’ll think about these things. What you’re doing encompasses the entire ministry of our Savior and our Messiah Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ).
So let’s end the way we began. We began with that blessing that we say after the cup and before the bread. You remember what it was:
Blessed are you, Adonai (אֲדֹנָי), our God, King of the universe, who sanctified us with his commandments, took pleasure in us, and with love and favor gave us his holy Shabbat (שַׁבָּת) as a heritage, a memorial of the creation, a day which is the beginning of our sacred gatherings, a memorial of our Exodus from Egypt.
And that’s where we stopped. And let’s continue on now:
For us did you choose, and us did you sanctify, from every tribe and nation.
Now, the rabbis agree that when a Jew reads this, they can think about how, out of all the people groups, God chose the Jewish people out of every tribe and nation. But the rabbis also say — if you are a Gentile, that you can read this as: God has chosen me and sanctified me out of all the tribes and nations. Because this applies to people who are not just Jewish, but people from all the tribes and nations whom God has chosen to be his people.
And it’s through Messiah — his offering of the cup, the offering of his blood of the New Covenant — that whoever wants to drink that, whoever wants to enter into this covenant that he offers us, we can be one of his, regardless what tribe or what nation you come from.
And then it concludes:
In your holy Shabbat (שַׁבָּת), with love and favor did you give us as a heritage. Blessed are you, Adonai (אֲדֹנָי), who sanctifies the Shabbat (שַׁבָּת).
Shabbat (שַׁבָּת) means “to rest.” And the only rest I know that really matters is the rest of knowing that I have been redeemed by the blood of Messiah, and I have been set free from slavery to sin through his body. And it’s good to remember that at least once a week.
So I invite you, if you don’t do it yet, to begin to observe a Friday evening Shabbat (שַׁבָּת) meal, where you welcome in the Sabbath and have that cup and have the bread — and here, you’ve got the blessings, you can print them out — and to really give significance to the Sabbath day, this foretaste that has the fragrance of the world to come. Learn how to truly enter into his rest through Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ).
So till next time, I wish you shalom (שָׁלוֹם) and may God bless.
Open All Scripture in Bible Gateway
A Sabbath Eve Blessing:
Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, King of the universe, who sanctified us with His commandments, took pleasure in us, and with love and favor gave us His holy Shabbat as a heritage, a memorial of the creation, a day which is the beginning of our sacred gatherings, a memorial of our exodus from Egypt…
John 2:7 -11 Yeshua said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Yeshua did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory. And His disciples believed in Him.
The Blessings Over Wine:
ברוך אתה יי אלהינו מלך העולם בורא פרי הגפן
Baruch Atah, Adonai, Eloheinu, Melech ha’olam, borei pri ha’gafen.
Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.
Luke 24:27-31 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged Him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So He went in to stay with them. When He was at table with them, He took the bread and made a blessing and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him. And He vanished from their sight.
The Blessings Over Bread:
ברוך אתה יי אלהינו מלך העולם המוציא לחם מן הארץ
Baruch Atah, Adonai, Eloheinu, Melech ha’olam, ha’motzi lechem min ha’aretz.
Blessed are you, Adonai, our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.
A Sabbath Blessing:
Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, King of the universe, who sanctified us with His commandments, took pleasure in us, and with love and favor gave us His holy Shabbat as a heritage, a memorial of the creation, a day which is the beginning of our sacred gatherings, a memorial of our exodus from Egypt. For us did You chose and us did You sanctify from every tribe and nation. And Your holy Shabbat, with love and favor did You give us as a heritage. Blessed are You, Adonai, who sanctifies the Shabbat.
