Hebrew Voices #62 – Reggie White and The Secret Vault (Rebroadcast)

In this episode of Hebrew Voices, Reggie White and the Secret Vault, I share my experiences teaching Biblical Hebrew to the late football Hall-of-Famer Reggie White and tell the story of how we attained special access to a vault holding the actual pages of the Aleppo Codex, an opportunity which Reggie later famously called the best day of his life, better than even winning the Superbowl! Jackie wrote: “What an inspiration this man's faith continues to be to the world... and to me.”

I look forward to reading your comments!

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Hebrew Voices #62 - Reggie White and The Secret Vault

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

Reggie: I came to the realization that, you know what? If I'm gonna find God, I’d better go find Him for myself. I gotta go back and research the Scripture in His original language to see what it said.

Nehemia: Shalom, this is Nehemia Gordon. Welcome to Hebrew Voices. Super Bowl season always reminds me of my late friend, football Hall of Famer, Reggie White. I had the privilege of being Reggie's Hebrew teacher and showing him around Israel in 2002. During that visit, I took Reggie to see the actual pages of the Aleppo Codex kept in a secret vault. That was one of the greatest days of both of our lives. Here's a brief talk I gave about that experience.

Nehemia: This is a place called the Shrine of the Book. I like to call this place the “Jot and Tittle Museum.” And the reason I call it the Jot and Tittle Museum is that in this place - this is part of the Israel Museum - they have two things on display. One is the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the other is what's called the “Aleppo Codex” which is called the crown jewel of Hebrew manuscripts. They call it the “Keter Aram Tzova,” the Aleppo Crown, because it's considered the ultimate Hebrew manuscript that preserves the minute points of Scripture. And, you know, 2000 years ago, there was a man who talked about not one jot or one tittle passing away from the Torah. Do you know who said that?

Audience: Yes.

Nehemia: And the place where these jots and tittles are preserved is in this museum, the Jot and Tittle museum. And one of my dreams in life was to get into the Museum and be able to see this. This is the Aleppo Codex - as I said, the crown jewel.

Now, anybody can walk in and see what you see in this photograph here. But what they don't know, and what I learned at the university, is that in fact, only the top two pages are real. The rest of the pages, the ones on the side, those are preserved in a vault, in a secret vault, and I'm not allowed to tell you where it is. But they're preserved in a secret vault, and the reason for that is that they're afraid someone, this being the Middle East - not here, but where the Jot and Tittle museum is located - being the Middle East, they're afraid someone will walk in and blow it up. And it's too important, it's irreplaceable.

And so, what they've done is taken the top two pages, and everything here on the side, that is what I call a “fake.” Keith doesn't like me calling it a fake. He prefers me referring to it as a “replica.” So everything here on the side is a replica, only these top two pages are real. And the rest of it is in the vault.

And so, one of my dreams in life, one of my aspirations studying at the university, was to get into the vault and see the original. And that's because, as I mentioned, although I was born and raised in Illinois, deep down in my heart I'm from Missouri, and I need to see it for myself. And if you go and you take any Bible in the world, any translation of the Old Testament, of the Tanakh, into English, it's based on this manuscript, on the Aleppo Codex. And when I have any Hebrew printing, you know, I have a dozen different Hebrew printings of the Old Testament, of the Tanakh in my house, and every one of them goes back to the Aleppo Codex. So me, being from Missouri in my heart, I needed to get into that vault and see the original for myself. And this was a dream that I thought would never happen. I thought, “How am I ever going to get in there? They don't let people in there, it's not on display. They're too afraid that someone will blow it up or damage it.”

Well, one day, this Methodist Pastor, Keith Johnson, calls me up after I'd met him about a year earlier. And he tells me over the phone, he says that I have this important guest who wants to come to Israel. He wants to have a similar experience to what I had, and his name is Reggie White. And I say, “Who's that?” He's some football player who won the Super Bowl, or something like that. So, I look him up online. Okay, sounds very impressive, but I've never watched a Super Bowl in my life, I'm not into sports. And I say, “Okay, I'll take him on a tour.” And I take him around the country, and he actually stays with Michael, and we have some interactions there.

But I end up taking him to see two things. That was the main part of his visit, he wanted to see two things. One is, he wanted to go and see the Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew, and that was one of the things that we did that day. And that was no problem whatsoever. Anybody can go in and see those if you know what to look for. The second thing was a little bit more of a challenge. The second thing he wanted to see, he had been studying Scripture and he also had been looking for the sources. He had been preaching for years in his off-season. They used to call him the “Minister of Defense.”

And as the Minister of Defense, he was preaching the standard, out-of-the-box messages that he was told to preach. Well, when he retired from football, he told me that he wanted to become as great a Minister, a Preacher, as he had been a football player. And he didn't become such a great football player by accident. A lot of it had to do with just born talent, but it also had to do with determination and working hard. And he said, “I'm going to work as hard at becoming a Minister, as a Preacher, as I was as a football player,” and he started to read the Bible. And what he was looking for is the source of all those sermons he had been preaching over the years, and he couldn't find them. And then he thought, “Well, maybe if I go back to the original language, I'll find them.” And so, he started to actually study Hebrew.

And one of the things he had heard about from Keith, who let it out of the bag, was about this Aleppo Codex, and specifically, that the one on display isn't the real one. So, Reggie, I speak with him on the phone and he says in this deep voice he has, that he wants to see the original Aleppo Codex, not the replica on display, but the one in the vault. And so, “All right.” So, what do I do? I call up the people at the Jot and Tittle museum, and I say to them, “Can we get into the vault to see the…?” and I do what they call the PR thing. I say, “There's this famous football player…” who I've never heard of, “Coming from America and he wants to see the original Aleppo Codex.” And they say to me, “No problem, it's on display at the Shrine of the Book. Anybody can come in and see it.”

And then I say to them, “No, not the replica. He wants to see the one in the vault.” Then, there's silence on the other end of the phone. And the guy's thinking, “How does he know about this? It's a secret.” Well, the guy says, “No way, no go.” He said, “Ariel Sharon…” who was the Prime Minister at the time, “Couldn't get in here to see it. It's not for tourists. This isn't a joke. This isn't a game. We don't let people in to see it. It's a national treasure that's just not available for the general public.” And I said, “Okay, I did the best I could,” and I hung up the phone. I tried. All you could do is the best you can.

About an hour later, I get a call from that guy's boss. And it turns out that one of his big donors is a huge football fan. And he says, “Not only can you come in to see the vault, but I'll take you there personally to show it to you.” And this is how I ended up in the vault, seeing the original Aleppo Codex.

This is me about 80 pounds ago, and this is Reggie, of blessed memory, and here's the original Aleppo Codex. And, you know, the guy's got the white gloves. You can't touch it directly, because the acid on his hand will damage the paper, the parchment. It needs to last another 1,000 or 2000 years. And this was one of the high points of my life, getting in to see this Aleppo Codex in the vault.

That was the testimony I shared about getting in to see the Aleppo Codex with Reggie White. Now here's an ESPN special that aired in February 2005 during Super Bowl 39, shortly after Reggie White passed away. In the interview, Reggie's son describes a dream he had in which he saw two Hebrew words. The words were “paduy laYehovah,” redeemed of Yehovah. Here's the ESPN tribute to Reggie White and his spiritual journey into the Torah.

Reggie’s Wife: You could still hear his voice. I could still see his smile. I picked up the phone the other day to call him, you know, forgetting that he wasn't there. But I still talk to him. I still talked, because I knew he was listening.

Reporter: Sunday, December 26th, 2004. Reggie White and his family were at their home outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. It was just before 7:00 AM.

Reggie’s Wife: I woke him up because he was coughing. I turned the light on, and I could see that he was choking, so I called 911 immediately. And then I did mouth-to-mouth.

Reporter: Reggie was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead within the hour. He was 43 years old.

Wife: I just really thought I was in the, you know, somewhere, in space. I just wish he would have told me.

Reporter: Told you what?

Reggie’s Wife: That he was…That he was ready. That he was ready, because I really believe he was ready.

Reporter: An ordained Minister since the age of 17, White preached the Gospel throughout his NFL career.

Reggie: I've always done my best to honor the name of Jesus.

Reporter: Nicknamed "the Minister of Defense", White spoke openly about his Christian faith during his 15 years in the league.

Reggie: I didn't do it my way, I tried to make sure I did it God's way, the way he would have me to do it.

Reporter: Throughout his life, White had spent countless hours preaching and millions of dollars supporting the Church. But after his retirement from the NFL in 2000, his spiritual journey took an unexpected turn. He began to seriously question the word he had been spreading. He stopped preaching and never set foot in a Church again.

Reggie’s Wife: He resented the fact that Pastors knew that what they were preaching in the pulpit was tradition, and it wasn't from the word of God. He resented the fact that people asked him to preach and speak because he was a football player.

Reggie: If you do not know Christ is your personal savior, pray this prayer with me. Dear God...

Reporter: Previously, Reggie had always taught and preached from the New Testament. But as he told the NFL Network in December, he wanted to go directly to the original source, the Old Testament, which was written in Hebrew.

Reggie: You won't hear me anymore saying, "God spoke to me about something" unless I read something in Scripture that I know, “Okay, now this is pertaining to what I'm feeling inside.” I came to the realization that, “You know what? If I'm gonna find God, I’d better go find Him for myself. I gotta go back and research the Scripture in His original language, to see what it said.”

Reggie’s Wife: Because he really understood the Torah as its original citing, he saw that just a little bit of distortion made a difference in the content, and that disturbed him. And that's what made him learn more.

Reporter: In 2003, White took a trip to Israel to better understand the Holy Land from a Biblical standpoint. There he met Nehemia Gordon, a Biblical Hebrew scholar who would become his teacher.

Nehemia: He had looked at many different translations in English and he saw they never match each other. Often, in very crucial things they'll translate differently. And he realized that any translation, that's someone else's interpretation. He wanted to take the middleman out and get to the original message.

Reggie’s Wife: He kept saying, “I can't know the Son…” you know, which is the Messiah, “without knowing the Father.” And so, he spent every wakening moment learning about the Father, which took him to Hebrew.

Reporter: Reggie had told me that when he was in Israel, he had an experience that was even better than the Superbowl. What was he talking about?

Reggie’s Wife: He got to see the original Hebrew Scriptures, the archives. He got into this vault that nobody, nobody could get into.

Nehemia: So, he had already begun to learn a little bit of Hebrew. And one of the manuscripts, he pointed to the screen, because it's a manuscript reader, and he said, “Wait a minute. I know that word,” and he read a few words in Hebrew. I think to him, that was a moving experience.

Reporter: For the last nine months of Reggie's life, Gordon taught him the Hebrew language twice a week over the telephone from Jerusalem.

Nehemia: He was making great leaps and bounds in his study of Hebrew. He would spend sometimes 10 hours a day studying Hebrew. He just had a passion for it.

Reggie’s Wife: He would just go downstairs, maybe about 9:00 o'clock. He would talk to his teacher Nehemia 9:00 to 11:00. From 11:00 to maybe 1:00, he would study, then he’d take a little break, take lunch. Then he would go back and study, maybe to 6:00 and he’d stop for dinner. We'd eat dinner together, and then he may go on to 9:00.

Nehemia: He could sit down with a dictionary and go through a whole chapter of the Torah, of the first five Books of Moses. And after a couple of hours, he would be able to read that whole chapter.

Reggie’s Son: The most important years of his life were the three years he was studying Hebrew and when he was studying the Old Testament. I think so, because he came to grips with himself.

Reporter: In 2000, Reggie and Sarah renewed their vows in a Hebrew ceremony. The family also stopped celebrating Christmas and even celebrated Hanukkah for a year. White said he felt ostracized for his actions by the Christian community.

Reggie: I'm considered a heretic among some. I have Ministers that I know of that have wanted people to stay away from me. I've been accused of becoming a Jew and converting to Judaism and moving to Israel. I've been accused of so many things, because I have decided to study the Hebrew text.

Reggie’s Wife: They were concerned that he was moving away from Christianity, when in fact, he was moving closer to the word and not further away. He was really moving deeper.

Nehemia: I live in Israel and I'm Jewish, but Reggie White never, at no point when I knew him, ever wanted to become a Jew. He was once somewhere, and somebody said to him, “Shalom.” He said, “Why are you saying Shalom?” And they said, “Oh, you became Jewish, no?” and he was very upset by that, and very offended.

Reporter: What religion did Reggie consider himself when he passed away?

Reggie’s Wife: A believer. We've decided we'll just call ourselves “believers.” A Torah seeker, somebody who was seeking the truth of Torah, the word of God.

Reporter: On Christmas, the night before his death, White told family and friends about a recent dream he had had that took place entirely in Hebrew. In the dream he found a treasure. And on it was a message in Hebrew.

Son: So, he goes and looks at those two words. And both of those words mean the same thing. They mean "redeemed". So, what he was looking at was, he found his treasure and he was redeemed in Yehovah's name. And Yehovah is just the name of God in Hebrew, which in English means "the Lord". It was almost like God was telling him, “Look, you’ve found what you were looking for. You're redeemed, now come on home.”

Reporter: The body of Reginald Howard White rests in the cemetery outside of Charlotte. His grave is unmarked, waiting for a tombstone which will feature a Torah scroll. It will read, "My good and faithful servant". Just weeks after Reggie's death, Sarah White visited her husband's grave for the first time since his funeral.

Reporter: When you come here, what do you want to tell him?

Reggie’s Wife: That I miss him, that I miss him teaching us. That I want him to help me have the same desire that he had to know the truth. That's what I want to tell him, and that the kids are doing okay, and he did a good job. And thank you for just being who he is to me.

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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  • Barbara says:

    Did I understand Reggie White to say that no where in the Aleppo Codex did it mention Hell? That preachers invented it? I was astounded by this.

  • Michael Williams says:

    He was always a person I followed, knowing he found the truth before he left the earth is a discovery journey I am on myself.

  • Sharon says:

    Wonderful testimonies! So glad you honored Reggie and all of us with sharing.

  • Stephanie Shiflet says:

    Wonderful amazing story! Your a blessed man to have so many wonderful encounters and journeys! May all your dreams come to pass as Yehovah guides you!

  • Adele Voss says:

    I went to The Shrine of the Book. I saw the Aleppo Codex. I stood there and looked at the words until I found yod hay vav hay. And Lo it was there and WITH THE VOWEL MARKS!!!! I too am from Missouri. ;))

  • I feel like I have benefited from Reggie White’s search for the truth. I wish I had his dictionary to be able to learn an entire chapter in a couple hours. Oh, to read Biblical Hebrew firsthand…… A girl can dream.

  • George says:

    great story on the minister of defense

  • Jay says:

    Yahovah works in wonderful ways often in ways we don’t expect

  • Elena Frasco says:

    This so describes my journey…. THANK U for posting ❗