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“Behold, days are coming, says the L-rd, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Yisra᾽el, and with the house of Yehuda… but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Yisra᾽el after those days, says the L-rd; I will put my Torah in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their G-d, and they shall be my people…”
-Jeremiah 31:31, 33
“Rabbi Elazar says: Be diligent in learning Torah, and know what to respond to one who denigrates the Torah. Know before Whom you labor–the Master of your work is trustworthy to pay you the wage for your activity.”
-Pirkei Avos 2:14
“While writing this commentary of the New Testament, I had no other goal, as I have said in the first volume, but to reconcile these two enemy sisters: The Church and the Synagogue… to show everyone that the New Testament only comes to show that the root of existence is in the unity of G–d (ahdut ha-Bore) … and also to strengthen the law of Moses (Torat Moshe)… I publish this commentary (to Matthew) in Hebrew for Jews, to introduce them to the New Testament who, until now, have not recognized its beauty (eynam makirim ’et yofya)… Notwithstanding the contrary misconception, the New Testament is in no manner contrary to the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) or to the Talmud.“
-Rabbi Eliyahu Tzvi Soloveitchik, Kol Kore
Waykeeper Principles #6 & #8
6. The Jewish writings called, “the New Testament,” are not equal, but are subordinate to the Torah given by G-d at Sinai (and therefore not a Halachic authority).
8. We do not yet have a kosher translation of the “New Testament,” but its general teachings align especially with Hasidic Judaism (e.g. serving G-d with and beyond ‘the letter’).
The First Kosher Orthodox Rabbinic Translation of the New Testament
Sunday (1):
John 2:12 → John 3:2 (16)
12 After this he went down to Kefar Nahum, he and his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there a few days.
Cleansing of the Temple
13 The Passover of the Judeans was near, and Yeshua went up to Jerusalem.
14 In the Temple he found those selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money-changers seated.
15 Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the Temple, both the sheep and the oxen; he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.
16 And to those selling the doves he said, “Take these things away from here; do not make my Father’s House a house of trade.”
17 His disciples remembered that it is written, “Zeal for Your House will consume me.”
18 Then the Judean authorities answered and said to him, “What sign do you show us, since you do these things?”
19 Yeshua answered and said to them, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.”
20 Then the Judeans said, “This Sanctuary has been built for forty-six years, and will you raise it in three days?”
21 But he was speaking about the sanctuary of his body.
22 Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Yeshua had spoken.
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the Feast, many trusted in his name, seeing the signs that he was doing.
24 But Yeshua himself did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people,
25 and had no need that anyone should testify concerning a person, for he himself knew what was in a person.
Chapter 3
1 Now there was a man from the Pharisees named Nakdimon, a ruler of the Judeans.
2 This man came to Yeshua by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you have come from G-d as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless G-d is with him.”
Monday (2):
John 3:3 → John 3:24 (22)
3 Yeshua answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of G-d.”
4 Nakdimon said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Yeshua answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of G-d.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
7 Do not marvel that i said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’
8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.”
9 Nakdimon answered and said to him, “How can these things be?”
10 Yeshua answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?
11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony.
12 If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the son of man.
14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up,
15 so that everyone who trusts in him may have eternal life.
16 For G-d so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who trusts in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For G-d did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him.
18 The one who trusts in him is not condemned; but the one who does not trust has already been condemned, because he has not trusted in the name of the only son of G-d.
19 And this is the judgment: that the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For everyone who practices evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed.
21 But the one who practices truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be revealed as having been done in G-d.
22 After these things Yeshua and his disciples came into the land of Judea, and there he remained with them and was immersing.
23 Yohanan also was immersing at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people were coming and being immersed,
24 for Yohanan had not yet been thrown into prison.
Tuesday (3):
John 3:25 → John 4:6 (18)
25 Then a discussion arose between the disciples of Yohanan and a Judean about purification.
26 And they came to Yohanan and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you testified—look, he is immersing, and everyone is coming to him.”
27 Yohanan answered and said, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it has been given to him from heaven.
28 You yourselves bear me witness that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah,’ but ‘I have been sent before him.’
29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine has been fulfilled.
30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”
31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth is earthly and speaks from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.
32 What he has seen and heard, this he testifies, yet no one receives his testimony.
33 The one who receives his testimony has set his seal that G-d is true.
34 For the one whom G-d has sent speaks the words of G-d, for G-d gives the spirit without measure.
35 The Father loves the son and has given all things into his hand.
36 The one who trusts in the son has eternal life; but the one who disobeys the son will not see life, but the wrath of G-d remains upon him.
Chapter 4
1 Therefore when the Lord learned that the Pharisees had heard that Yeshua was making and immersing more disciples than Yohanan
2 (although Yeshua himself was not immersing, but his disciples),
3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.
4 And it was necessary for him to pass through Samaria.
5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6 And Jacob’s well was there. Therefore Yeshua, wearied from the journey, was sitting by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
Wednesday (4):
John 4:7 → John 4:30 (24)
The Samaritan Woman
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Yeshua said to her, “Give me to drink.”
8 For his disciples had gone away into the town to buy food.
9 Therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, being a Judean, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Judeans do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Yeshua answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of G-d, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11 She said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. From where then do you have the living water?
12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?”
13 Yeshua answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks from this water will thirst again,
14 but whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never thirst; rather, the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not thirst nor come here to draw.”
16 He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.”
17 The woman answered and said, “I do not have a husband.”
Yeshua said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I do not have a husband,’
18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have spoken truthfully.”
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people must worship.”
21 Yeshua said to her, “Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews.
23 But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to worship him.
24 G-d is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (the one called anointed). When he comes, he will declare all things to us.”
26 Yeshua said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
The Disciples Return
27 At this point his disciples came, and they marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, “What do you seek?” or “Why are you speaking with her?”
28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into the town, and said to the people,
29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
Thursday (5):
John 4:31 → John 4:54 (24)
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”
33 Therefore the disciples said to one another, “No one has brought him anything to eat, have they?”
34 Yeshua said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work.
35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest already.
36 The one who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps may rejoice together.
37 For in this the saying is true: one sows and another reaps.
38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
Many Samaritans Believe
39 From that town many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I ever did.”
40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they were asking him to remain with them; and he remained there two days.
41 And many more believed because of his word,
42 and they were saying to the woman, “No longer do we believe because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard and know that this one truly is the savior of the world.”
Healing the Official’s Son
43 After the two days he departed from there for Galilee.
44 For Yeshua himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own homeland.
45 So when he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all the things that he had done in Jerusalem at the Feast, for they themselves also had gone to the Feast.
46 Therefore he came again to Cana of Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Kefar Nahum.
47 When he heard that Yeshua had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him and was asking him to come down and heal his son, for he was about to die.
48 So Yeshua said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
49 The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
50 Yeshua said to him, “Go; your son lives.” The man believed the word that Yeshua spoke to him and went his way.
51 And while he was going down, his servants met him, saying that his boy was living.
52 So he inquired of them the hour when he began to recover. They said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.”
53 Then the father knew that it was at that very hour in which Yeshua had said to him, “Your son lives,” and he himself believed, and his whole household.
54 This again was a second sign that Yeshua did when he had come out of Judea into Galilee.
Chapter 5
Friday (6):
John 5:1 → John 5:23 (23)
Healing at the Pool on the Sabbath
1 After these things there was a Feast of the Judeans, and Yeshua went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-Zatha, having five porticoes.
3 In these lay a multitude of the sick—blind, lame, and paralyzed.
5 And a certain man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
6 When Yeshua saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to become well?”
7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
8 Yeshua said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
9 Immediately the man became well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Now it was the Sabbath on that day.
10 So the Judean authorities were saying to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”
11 But he answered them, “The one who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’”
12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your mat and walk’?”
13 But the one who had been healed did not know who it was, for Yeshua had withdrawn, since there was a crowd in that place.
14 Afterward Yeshua found him in the Temple and said to him, “See, you have become well; sin no more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
15 The man went away and told the Judean authorities that it was Yeshua who had made him well.
16 And because of this the Judean authorities were persecuting Yeshua, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
17 But he answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
18 For this reason therefore the Judean authorities were seeking all the more to kill him, because [they mistakenly judged that] he not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling G-d his own Father, making himself equal with G-d.
19 Therefore Yeshua answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing from himself unless it is something he sees the Father doing; for whatever that one does, these things the son likewise does.
20 For the Father loves the son and shows him all things that He Himself is doing; and greater works than these He will show him, so that you may marvel.
21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the son gives life to whom he wishes.
22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the son,
23 so that all may honor the son just as they honor the Father. The one who does not honor the son does not honor the Father who sent him.
Shabbat (7):
John 5:24 → John 5:40 (17)
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who hears my word and trusts the one who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
25 Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the son of G-d, and those who hear will live.
26 For just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave also to the son to have life in himself.
27 And He gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is the son of man.
28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
29 and will come out—those who did good to a resurrection of life, and those who practiced evil to a resurrection of judgment.
30 I can do nothing from myself; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the One who sent me.
31 If I alone testify about myself, my testimony is not valid.
32 There is another who testifies about me, and I know that the testimony which He testifies about me is true.
33 You have sent to Yohanan, and he has testified to the truth.
34 But I do not receive testimony from man, yet I say these things so that you may be saved.
35 He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a time in his light.
36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of Yohanan; for the works that the Father has given me to complete—the very works that I am doing—testify about me that the Father has sent me.
37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form.
38 And you do not have his word remaining in you, because you do not trust the one whom He sent.
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify about me.
40 Yet you are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life.
“One time he spoke with me about the matter that it is impossible to be a truly kosher (upright) person except when one draws close to the true Tzaddik (‘righteous one’) of the generation. He answered and said: Before the true Tzaddik is found in the world, it is possible to draw close to the blessed G-d on one’s own. But after the true Tzaddik is already found in the world, it is impossible to draw close to the blessed G-d in truth in any manner except when one merits to draw close to him.”
-Chayei Moharan 299:1
Eye To Zion 