Hebrew Voices #44 – The Rebirth of Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Rebroadcast)

Nehemia Gordon speaking on Israel Independence Day 2017In this episode of Hebrew Voices, The Rebirth of Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nehemia Gordon speaks on Israel's Independence Day about why he is a "Zionist", and how the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls parallels the rebirth of Israel as a nation. You can watch the video of his address at the public celebrations of Israel's 69th Independence Day in Huntington, West Virginia or listen to the audio as part of his Hebrew Voices podcast.

I look forward to reading your comments!

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Hebrew Voices #44 - The Rebirth of Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Nehemia: Shalom, this is Nehemia Gordon in celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. I want to share with you this message I gave at Israel’s 69th Independence Day festivities in Huntington, West Virginia. Listen as I explain why I’m a Zionist and how the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls parallels the rebirth of Israel as a nation. Yom Ha’atzmaut sameach! Happy Independence Day to the State of Israel, its citizens, and its supporters around the world.

Benjamin Netanyahu: Le ma’an Zion lo ekhesheh, u’l’ma’an Yerushalayim lo eshkot. (For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest. Isaiah 62:1)

Speaker: His name is Nehemia Gordon. He holds a Master’s Degree in Biblical Studies and a Bachelor’s Degree in Archaeology from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Pretty impressive credentials, if I say so myself. He’s worked also as a translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and as a researcher deciphering ancient Hebrew manuscripts. He’s a prominent figure in the Karaite Jewish community. He has written five books on the Hebrew origins of Christianity and he’s active in the interfaith dialogue.

So, what better person to have to come share with us during an interfaith celebration for the nation of Israel between Jews and Christians than Nehemia Gordon?

Nehemia: Shalom. It is really an honor and a blessing to be here on the 69th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, what we call in Israel, Yom Ha’atzmaut, Independence Day. Late in the afternoon on the 14th of May 1948, Israel declared independence. 11 minutes later, the state was recognized by Harry Truman, the President of the United States, and three days later by the Soviet Union.

I was born and raised in Chicago, but moved to Israel in 1993. About 10 years ago, I was on a flight from Israel coming to the US to visit, and the flight was connecting through Germany.

On my way back, on the way to Frankfurt from New York, I sat next to a young German boy. He asked me about myself and I told him that I moved to Israel in 1993, born in Chicago. He said, “Why did you do that? Why would anyone leave America and go to the Middle East, where there’s war, and problems?” I explained to him, “I’m a Zionist,” and he had this look on his face as if I just admitted I was a leader in the Illuminati. He couldn’t believe I would admit I was a Zionist, and I could see he didn’t know what it means to be a Zionist.

So I explained to him that when I say I’m a Zionist, what I mean is that I believe in self-determination of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel. I’m also a believer in the Hebrew Bible, in what Jews call the Tanakh. As a believer in the Bible, I also believe that God gave the land of Israel to the people of Israel as a precious gift, and if I have the opportunity to exercise that gift, I should grab it.

Whatever problems we have in Israel, this is my homeland. I’ve lived in Jerusalem for many, many years, and it’s difficult to explain to people. Why would you leave America? Why are you a Zionist? I’m not sure 10 years ago I could fully explain. What I knew is that my great-grandfather, he was a Rabbi in Eastern Europe. I didn’t know that much about him. I knew he fled to the US. I found out recently, he arrived in June 1923. My name is Nehemia, and I’m named after him, and from the time I was a little boy I was always told, “Your great-grandfather Nehemia was a Zionist.” I always thought, “Why did he come to America if he was a Zionist?”

I found out that Israel… the borders were not open to Jews in 1923. The British were limiting the number of Jews who could come, and so he went to Chicago, that was his second-best choice.

A few months ago I was doing research on my family and found that his father-in-law, my great-great grandfather, was a Zionist in Eastern Europe. I had no idea. His name was Baruch Netanel Navadel. I found this passage in a newspaper from 1901 - 116 years ago - that describes a rally that was held at the synagogue in a little village called Tauragen, or Tavrig, in Lithuania. This was written in Hebrew in a local newspaper - they wrote in Hebrew in 1901, I didn’t know that. They wrote, “When the lovers of Zion gathered for the annual meeting at the synagogue in Tauragen on Passover, the righteous teacher here, Rabbi Baruch Netanel Navadel,” that’s my great-great grandfather, “he gave an exalted sermon in praise of Zion, and he raised money for the workers in the land of Israel.”

This is why I’m a Zionist. My ancestors, every year on Passover, they would recite the Passover Haggadah, and at the end they would sing the song, “Bashana haba’ah beYerushalayim, Next Year in Jerusalem.” We were in exile for 2,000 years, but we never forgot that our place, our homeland, was Jerusalem, was Israel. My great-grandfather and his father-in-law dreamed, it was a fantasy, that they could get to return to the land of Israel, and they never had that opportunity.

When I was 20 years old I decided, “I have that opportunity,” and I moved to Israel and have been very blessed living there. I’m certainly thankful to the United States for giving refuge to my people here in the United States. If my great-grandfather hadn’t left Lithuania, he would be a pile of ashes today. The Jews of Vilna, where he came from, were rounded up and taken out to the Ponari Forest, where they were all shot, and I wouldn’t exist today. So I’m so grateful for the United States giving refuge to the Jewish people, and for the first time treating us as decent human beings, as citizens, giving us an opportunity to contribute to society. But I’m also grateful that I got to return home after 2,000 years.

In Israel, I worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The story of the Dead Sea Scrolls parallels the resurrection of the State of Israel. In 1947 a Bedouin shepherd found these scrolls in the Judean Desert on the shore of the Dead Sea at a ruin called Qumran. He found these ancient scrolls that we now know are 2,000 years old, and all he saw was a pile of shoe leather. He said, “I found this wonderful, valuable thing. I’ll sell them to a shoemaker who will turn them into shoes,” because he was an illiterate Bedouin. He didn’t know what he had. The shoemaker realized they were some strange writings and brought them to a Christian Monk at the Monastery of St. Mark, thinking they were some maybe Christian dialect of Aramaic called Syriac. The Christian couldn’t read them, ends up eventually selling them to Professor Eliezer Sukenik of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who immediately recognized that these scrolls were ancient Hebrew scrolls from the Second Temple period, from the 1st century, before the destruction of the Temple.

The story of how he first saw those scrolls is just unbelievable. It was November 29, 1947. The United Nations was voting on what to do about the Palestine problem. You had Jews who were now in the land of Israel demanding independence as a sovereign Jewish state, and they were fighting with the Arabs, who wanted to drive them into the sea, and the United Nations voted to partition the Jewish homeland between an Arab state and a Jewish state.

That was November 29, 1947. On that very day, an antiquities dealer from Bethlehem brought the Dead Sea Scrolls to Professor Sukenik. There were already riots, because they knew the United Nations was going to have a vote to partition Palestine between a Jewish and Arab state. So he had to meet him at the border between the Jewish and the Arab side. Over the fence he passes him the Dead Sea Scrolls, and for the first time in 2,000 years, these scrolls that had laid in a cave - when the Romans came, they hid them in a cave – and now, 2,000 years later, for the first time, Professor Sukenik read the ancient Hebrew words.

On the very day that Israel was reborn and proclaimed that there would be a Jewish State, he read those words. It’s unbelievable stuff. As the Jews were celebrating in the streets and the Arabs were rioting that evening, and the United Nations were casting their vote, Sukenik was poring over the scrolls to try to understand what they said. He spent months deciphering them. I want to read you what he wrote in his journal.

“There was a siege of Jerusalem. It began in December 1947, while the British were still occupying Palestine. The British would arrest Jews and confiscate their guns, but it didn’t stop the Arabs from putting us under siege. People starved during this siege. It went all the way to July 1948. During the siege,” Sukenik writes, the professor who read the Dead Sea Scrolls for the first time, he says, “we were cut off from the world and even from other parts of the city of Jerusalem. For months, the quiet atmosphere of Jerusalem was shattered day and night by the thundering of enemy artillery and mortars. At the same time, the ancient scrolls were gradually being deciphered, and in them we heard the distant echoes of an ancient time when the people of Israel dwelt in their land. At times, the periods of history were blurred and it seemed as if the ancient scrolls were speaking not about events from the distant past, but were pages from our own lives. During those difficult days, we drew comfort from these ancient, tattered scrolls.”

That sounds like some strange poetry until you’ve been to the Land of Israel and walk the streets. I walk the streets of Jerusalem and I hear echoes of prophesies and verses I read in the Bible. I walk in my neighborhood down the street of Jerusalem, down Emek Refaim Street, and I think of the two battles that David fought there against the Philistines. We read about these in 2 Samuel 5:18-24. It’s the first and second battle of the Valley of Refaim.

There’s a great passage there in 2 Samuel 5:24. David has a prophesy that he receives. The word he receives is, “When you hear the sound of marching from the tops of the bacha trees, then you shall charge…” that is, against the Philistines, “for then the LORD has gone out before you to smite the camp of the Philistines.”

And as I walk down the streets in Jerusalem, I can hear the rustling in the eucalyptus trees which the Jewish pioneers, when they arrived in the late 1800s, planted to drain the swamps. After 2,000 years of desolation, the country had become a mix of malarial swamp and desert, and they planted these trees and you hear them, and I know that the God of Israel is with His people. I know that the people in Israel only survive because we can hear that sound of His armies, rustling in those trees. And He is with us.

Today is the 69th anniversary of Israel, and it’s my prayer that 100 years from now they’ll be standing here, talking about the 169th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. May it be, Amen.

You have been listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

We hope the above transcript has proven to be a helpful resource in your study. While much effort has been taken to provide you with this transcript, it should be noted that the text has not been reviewed by the speakers and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If you would like to support our efforts to transcribe the teachings on NehemiasWall.com, please visit our support page. All donations are tax-deductible (501c3) and help us empower people around the world with the Hebrew sources of their faith!


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Related Posts: Fake Dead Sea Scrolls Explained The Bible of the Dead Sea Scrolls Reggie White's Spiritual Journey The Most Important Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls Pesher in the Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew Voices Episodes Support Team Studies Nehemia Gordon's Teachings on the Name of God SHOW NOTES Local Herald Dispatch article about the event and Nehemia's talk.
News clipping from Melitz (1901) mentioning Nehemia Gordon’s Great Great Grandfather R' Baruch Netanel

Translation: When the Lovers of Zion and the Zionists gathered for the annual meeting at the shul on Chol HaMoed Pessach, Gershon Epstein blessed ? the great rabbi here R' Gershon Mendel Ziv, the great rabbi the righteous teacher here R' Baruch Netanel for his exalted sermon in praise of Zion and the great rabbi R' Samuel Jacob Rabinovitz and handed over to me 50 kopeks for the good of the workers in the Land of Israel.

  • Maureen says:

    Listening to this on 73rd anniversary, in 2021… just as emotional now as then. Thank you Nehemia – it is always enriching and a blessing to listen to you.

  • Yanick says:

    You Jews need to know that catholics are not born again christians ..They dont even believe in being born again and regeneration of the Holyspirit,or Justified by the blood of our messiah Jesus, what you would call Yeshua .
    Monastery Monk is a catholic from the Vicar of messiah called the pope,who calls us real christian Heritics and was killing us through out the middle ages because we did not believe in there false religion.They are anti messiah

  • donald murphy says:

    excellent words spoken with great emotion. thank you.

  • James Hewett says:

    It was so powerfull that it made me cry.u have strengthen my faith and ur teaching have been a blessing in my life and my walk with Yehovah. I am happy for u and Isreal and his people. I wish I could have been apart of something as this. I will always keep u in my prayers and the state of Isreal. Maybe someday if Yehovah will let me I will go up to Jerusalem. Shalom my friend and my brother.

  • Yvonne Russell says:

    Powerful Nehemia! I always have longed to be a part of that Israeli drama. So I live it through you, Thank you so much.

  • Seydel says:

    Powerful! May Yehovah always bless His land and His people. Thank you for sharing Nehemiah

  • onejbsmith says:

    Dude! You ## killed it! Mic drop material.

  • Anna Maria says:

    Toda achi. It brought tears to my eyes. I long to return home, beautiful land of Israel that bears the Name of our Elohim! HaleluYAH. YaHUaH Eloheinu continue to bless you and keep you. Shalom

  • YIshisLassie says:

    Thank u for sharing on so many levels … May YeHoVaH continue to be, and to provide for all that you need, our precious brother/cousin/friend. And may He now powerfully draw and purify His people, that the Land may finally inherit ALL of her promises, which flow from His boundlessly beautiful heart of Love for ALL peoples.

  • Rocky says:

    What a tremendous blessing!

  • walter schwenk says:

    May it be Yah’s will that this generation would finally learn the lessons of why the previous exiles happened, in order that it might not happen again.

  • Janice says:

    Bless you big! Am Yisroel Chai !

  • Pamela says:

    I thank you for being so open and honest with your feelings. You paint wonderful pictures in my very soul! May YeHoVAH continue His Work in you. And as always praying for the peace of Jerusalem.

  • Barbara Jayne says:

    Rich history told; and so much hope for the future of Israel. May many of us heed the Zionist call, both Jew and Christian. May Yehovah’s truth grow in our hearts, daily. And may we act to support Israel. Amen.

    • Barbara Jayne says:

      “But if ye return unto Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though your dispersed were in the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to cause My name to dwell there.” Nehemiah 1:9 (The Israel Bible™)

  • P'alex says:

    I am so grateful that you share with us so that we can see the hand of God at work in your life that has allowed you to touch so many and literally change my life.

    Thank you and God bless you.

  • Hey guys…cj here again with one more connection that Abba Father brought to my mind as I posted, regarding words from your “69th Anniversary of Israel” speech “quiet of Jerusalem shattered by thundering artilery & mortars”…

    The connect: while teaching school in the 1990’s, a wonderful student gave me a book written by his uncle who lived & survived by the grace of God as a child in war-torn South Vietnam, during the 60’s. The books title “Distant Thunder Hear My Cry”. It was a brief, heart-rending read of the horror & tragedy of war…told from the eyes of a child.

    Please pray night & day for peace in Jerusalem…and everywhere that mothers & fathers raise God’s beloved children.

    Much Shalom love to all,
    Cj

  • Nehemiah, listening to your heart speech regarding the 69th Anniversary of Israel, Zionism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, & your Grandfather! Amazing! Wow! Holy wow!

    We want to thank you for all you do to help re-institute Abba Yah’s ancient path.

    We know your walk is important because God said to me, cj, shortly before sending us to Jerusalem, September 17, 2016,
    “I need you to help Me re-institute the ancient path.”

    Now today as I listen to your speech about about Abba Yah’s holy way of connecting our present lives to His-story of the past, these words captured me, slinging me back into my own past (paraphrased in part) “we were cut off from the world…the quiet of Jerusalem was shattered by thundering artillery and mortars…in them (Dead Sea Scrolls) we heard the distant echoes of an ancient time when the people of Israel dwelt in their land…at times it seemed not of distant past, but of pages of our own lives.”

    My past met this article head/heart on as my spirit leapt, remembering a night in the early 2000’s when the will of God called out to me in the quiet night as we tent camped alongside a lake that we called “the new Texas coast”.

    His words were poetic & soul stirring, “From a distant land so far away, I here the pounding of ancient drummers calling out my name”

    Shalom to the heart of every home,
    Cj & Randy Randolph

  • Angel Crespo says:

    Amen. Powerful. Thank you for sharing, sir.