Why I Embrace My Hebrew Roots

While a Hebraic view of the Christian faith may seem new to some, many of us arrived here quite honestly while maturing and applying our faith. An honest analysis of what my daily life should look like and how to pass my values on to my kids brought me into the Movement. Years before, I had accepted Jesus as my savior and declared my faith outwardly in baptism. In studying the Old Testament, I couldn’t reconcile the parts of my faith that didn’t seem to align with God’s plan for His people. I wanted to be all in – serious about my relationship with God by following His word and His son without just following those before me.

Praying God’s Heart

In a leadership exercise for my Bible Study group, I decided to pray for God to put on my heart what was on His. While this was something I had never done before, I did it anyway. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t expect anything to change. But He did answer! Once I began to pray for this, I always had Israel on my mind. Before this, I couldn’t have even located Israel on a world map (another embarrassing confession). I started to notice information about Israel everywhere. It was in the news, mentioned in social media, and, most importantly, during my study of the Old Testament. I realized just how important Israel and the Jewish people are to God and His story for us. 

The 4^th Commandment

Years later, we studied Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments in another Bible Study. One of the study questions asked how I obey the 4th commandment – to keep the Sabbath (Ex. 20:7). This created a significant struggle for myself and another person in my group. The rest had already resolved the issue, though. Their answers varied widely, from “I use paper plates on Sundays” to “I take a yearly vacation.” While none of these responses are bad in themselves, none of them seemed right. I couldn’t get it out of my head. How was one to obey this command? Could it really be just whatever I thought was best, or did God have something specific in mind? So, I did some research. In Exodus, it says to remember the Sabbath. In Deuteronomy, it says to observe it and keep it holy. Those verses seemed vague, so I looked throughout the Bible (The Sabbath is mentioned a LOT!) and found some obvious truths about the Sabbath.  

1.  God takes it very seriously. (Ex. 16:27, 20:11, 35:2 and 31:16, Numbers 15:32, and many others)
2. It’s on the seventh day of the week. (Ex. 20:10 and many others)
3. God’s people aren’t to do any work. (Ex. 20:10 and others)
4. It was established for us! (Exodus 23:12 and Mark 2:27)
5. The Sabbath is a forever covenant between God and His people. (Exodus 31:16, Leviticus 16:31, Isaiah 56:6)

So now I had even more motivation to figure out what was required by this commandment. Christian sources on the Sabbath revealed a wide variety of ideas.  

Most Christian sources suggested:

• The Sabbath has changed to Sunday, or it can be on whatever day you choose.
• We are no longer responsible for obedience to this commandment.
• Going to church on Sunday fulfills the commandment.
• We should do something relaxing on Sunday, like shopping or watching sports.
• We should spend extra time with God (reading His word and praying).
• Read Christian books.
• Try not to work on Sundays.

I also found many other ideas over an extensive range. The common understanding is that God doesn’t care how or on what day we do the Sabbath, only that we remember it and keep it holy. I struggled with the answers I got from Christian sources because they were either very weakly backed up by scripture or centered around self and not God.  

This confusion led me to research Jewish sources. Since they firmly believe that the Sabbath must be kept, I wanted to find out how they say one must keep this commandment.

The Jewish sources suggested:

• The Sabbath is on the seventh day of the week (Saturday).
• It should include a celebratory meal
• No work should be done.
• It should include the father blessing his children and wife.
• It requires preparation (Friday is Preparation Day).
• There are specific bible readings for each Sabbath.
• It includes the whole family.

There’s more to it, but these were my initial findings. I realized Jews have clear and specific ways to keep the Sabbath commandment. They do not have a broad range of days that can be called the Sabbath. They do not offer self-gratification as obedience to this command. They have been doing the same thing for thousands of years, teaching generations how to remember and observe the Sabbath. It will look the same to future Jews as well.  

But what will a Christian Sabbath look like in the next generation? And the one after that? Because Christian Sabbath traditions seem to be held so loosely, I fear that the next generations of Christians may not recognize the Sabbath at all. Since I don’t want that for my family, we adopted a Messianic Jewish Sabbath as a tradition in our home.

Establishment of the Sabbath in our home

I concluded that Sabbath observation needed to be done differently in our home, and I was determined to get started. Pregnant with my 4th child, with three children aged six and under, I attempted not to work on the Sabbath. What a joke! How on earth does a mother of small children take a day off? It seemed impossible. Again, I found myself perusing Jewish sources to figure out what women did to observe the Sabbath. What I found is that the Sabbath dictates a lot, if not all, of what a Jewish woman does throughout most of her week. Friday is known as Preparation Day because all that needs to be done over the next 48 hours (Friday morning through Sunday morning) must be completed before Friday evening when the Sabbath begins. Also, some tasks must be done before Friday to leave it free for Sabbath Prep. It wasn’t easy at first to work this into my family’s schedule, but after we figured it out, I realized that it is not only possible for a busy mother to not work on the Sabbath, but it is freeing, relaxing, and mentally cleansing for her.

Once the Sabbath became a regular practice in my home, something changed. Peace entered our family. We suddenly had time for the high priorities that were getting pushed out of our schedules due to immediate needs. We had time to study our bibles, spend free time with each other and our children, and meet with other believers to worship without having a stressful, packed day. When asked what their favorite day is, all my children say “Shabbat” (Sabbath in Hebrew). All week, I look forward to having the peace that comes on Saturday. It is not a day of stifling restrictions but peace, togetherness, and, most importantly, time with God.

Celebrating Passover

The same Bible study that yielded my restlessness with the Sabbath command brought to my attention the Passover feast command.  

• Exodus 12:14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.
• Exodus 12:17 And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever.
• Exodus 12:24   You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. 
• Exodus 12:26-27 And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'”…
• Exodus 13:3 Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place.
• Exodus 13:10   You shall, therefore keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year.

God’s people were told to keep this feast as a day of remembrance – a memorial throughout generations, eternally, forever! How is it that I have grown up in the church and never even understood the feast of the Passover? How is it that, until I was an adult and sought it out on my own, I had not seen or heard of a Christian participating in a Passover Feast? What happened to eternally, forever, and throughout your generations?

Something you cannot miss when you immerse yourself in the study of the Bible is that God repeats things when they’re essential. Apparently, He knows that we tend to get distracted and skip over the things we don’t like or don’t understand in His word (we all do it), so He decided to make certain things extra clear. In addition to the six repeats of God’s command to keep the Passover Feast in Exodus, its importance is indicated throughout the rest of the Bible. All the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) recount Jesus’s participation in the Passover Feast as a child and an adult.

What followed was my fierce determination to learn more about this Passover Feast and how to incorporate it into our family traditions. What I found was surprising! Many Christians put information out for other Christians on Passover. They usually include how the elements used in a Passover Seder are relevant to Christians and point so perfectly to our Messiah!

Learning to hold a Passover Seder (Seder means “order” in Hebrew, and it is what the Passover Feast is called today) was, and continues to be, a learning process for our family. You can get an idea of how we celebrate Passover here. It changes each year as we learn more and incorporate that into our celebration. 

The rest is history (or His story!)

While realizing the importance of Israel as a nation and keeping the Sabbath and Passover started my family and I down the Hebrew Roots path, it has in no way ended there. We also observe Sukkot, Shavuot, Chanukah, and Yom Kippur. Each family member is at varying levels of the study of the Hebrew language. We have incorporated many delicious traditional Jewish recipes into our meals and more! Our family has grown spiritually by leaps and bounds since our first steps on this path, and I look forward to where God takes us from here and the glory that it brings Him!