AMAREL - It means "The Message or Word of God"

    Traditions play a significant role in our lives. They are the beliefs, observances, and activities passed on from one generation to the next. They’re the things taught to us by our parents, grandparents, and other significant people. As we accumulate this knowledge it shapes our responses to the things we encounter in life. These things become the “wisdom of the elders”. We’re taught to respect such things because “that’s the way it’s been done for generations.”
   But have you ever looked up the definition of tradition? I did, and one of the things I discovered really surprised me. Here is what Webster’s New World Dictionary says about it:

        1. originally, a surrender; betrayal.
        2. the handing down orally of stories, beliefs, customs, etc. from generation to generation.
        3. a story, belief, custom, proverb, etc. handed down this way.
        4. a long-established custom or practice that has the effect of an unwritten law.
        5. in theology, a) among Jews, the unwritten religious code and doctrine regarded as handed down
            from Moses. b) among Christians, the unwritten teachings regarded as handed down from Jesus
            and the Apostles.
    The very first definition in this list is quite remarkable. It identifies “tradition” as surrender or betrayal. This places tradition in a very unusual category. Perhaps we need to rethink our usual manner of responding to such things. Maybe they’re not as “solid” as we thought they were. Perhaps our “traditions” are merely “old wives tales”, “fables”. Indeed, many of them are precisely that.
    Tradition is indeed a surrender, to patterns of human behavior and the instructions of others. It could also be seen as a betrayal of the rules, laws, and regulations, or instructions that were originally set down, since those things tend to get changed in the process.
    Such considerations are particularly fitting in light of the “betrayals” involved in handing down the Word of YAHWEH. As you’ll note from other pages on this site, I’ve discovered things are not always what they seem to be. The “traditions” of our religious heritage are not all proper in the light of The Word of YAHWEH.     Man’s corruptions have crept in, however subtly, into our current “translations” of The Scriptures.
    Traditions begin with the foundational stories and beliefs of a culture. In the beginning those stories and beliefs have a solid historical basis. It begins with facts that could be easily verified. Yet as time moves on some of the details are remembered differently than what actually occurred. Since tradition is transmitted orally in most cases it becomes impossible to easily verify the facts at some point in time. Once this ability to verify the facts is lost tradition takes over as the new “reality”.
    When it comes to the Word of YAHWEH as we have it in our English translations, it appears this is exactly what has happened. What YAHWEH inspired the original authors to establish in written form has become modified. In some cases the modification is quite significant. In others it’s pretty mundane.
    Some of this happens as a result of the process of translation. Trying to get the thoughts of one culture into that of another is sometimes very difficult. Simple attempts at single word “translations” become virtually impossible.
    Further, one person relays a concept to another, but in doing so puts their own “spin” on the data. (We’re very familiar with this concept in today’s news media.) The data is perhaps quite solid, but an interpretation of the data gets added into the mix. The result is a distortion of the original.
    This “interpreted” data is then repeated to another, with yet another “spin” placed upon it - and another, and another, etc. Pretty soon there is a significant corruption of the original data. The story sounds the same, but it’s really quite different. It’s been changed, perhaps only slightly, but it alters the true meaning of the original. The result can be, and often is, confusion.
    YAHWEH tells us in His Word that He does not change; that He is faithful and reliable in the extreme; that His Word is reliable and can be trusted with our very lives. If we hold this to be true then we must believe every word He speaks as being absolutely dependable. However, this only applies to the original, or perhaps very early, manuscripts.
    We know that we do not have the original manuscripts in our modern English bibles. We know they are translations. We know they have been through several processes of editing and re-writing. We know the editors have chosen, because of tradition, to use certain methods of interpretation and editing. We also know, if we’ll do our homework, that some of these traditional methods of doing things have resulted in some significant corruptions of the original text.
    YAHWEH warned His people about altering His Word. He advised them they were not to add to, nor subtract from, what He gave them. Yet this is exactly what has happened.
    Oral tradition was added to the written Word. The written Torah was significantly expanded with the oral Torah. The Mishnah, the Talmud, the Tosefta, the Kabala, etc., all became additions to the written Word. They became the oral traditions that were based on what men thought YAHWEH intended to express in Scripture. This involves an addition to His Word. This is contrary to the will of YAHWEH.
    This process has occurred over a period of many centuries. In the beginning, the oral traditions were pretty solid. The memories were good. The facts were properly communicated, with diligence to keep the message faithful. In the ancient cultures such oral tradition was far more stable than oral tradition is today. People’s lives depended on the reliability of the information passed on to the next generations. They had little or no written material to work with.
    But as time went on, traditions began to change. They were expanded, for purposes only those who wrote them could really address. The farther one got from the original the more potential there was for modification and error.
    I believe this is one of the reasons YAHWEH periodically renewed His covenants with His people. The new, or renewed, covenants (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc.) were intended, I believe, as reminders of YAHWEH’s requirements and expectations for His people. Yet with each renewal of a covenant relationship we find that tradition crept in again, and eventually altered what YAHWEH had given to His people.
    As we observe the Sinai Covenant, the giving of the Mosaic Law, YAHWEH gets far more specific in the details of His requirements. In part at least, this was due to the continuing rejection of His ways by His people. By writing the commandments in stone with His own finger YAHWEH made it very clear what He expected.
    Yet even in this we see the nation of Israel rejecting His commandments very quickly; in some sense they did so even while He was still speaking to them. They stopped their ears and said, “Speak to us no more” We can’t stand it. Speak to Moses instead.”
        Ex. 20:19 They said to Moses, “Speak with us yourself, and we will listen; but don’t let God speak with
       us, lest we die.”

    If you read the whole story you’ll see they very quickly abandoned His teachings in favor of their worldly ways, their traditions. They blended their traditions, learned in Egypt, with the “new word” from YAHWEH. The result was a polluted worship process that denied YAHWEH His rightful place in their lives. More than once He almost destroyed them totally in the Wilderness of Sin for their rejection of His Word in favor of their traditions.
    This should be a powerful lesson for us. But we, like them, do not listen attentively to the Word of YAHWEH and seek to live according to it. No, we’re far more interested in living with our own traditions than we are in following His instructions. Just look at the corruptions involved in Christmas and Easter to find two perfect examples of how we ignore His Word.
    By the time The Messiah, YAHUSHUA, came to live on the earth the traditions of men had completely taken over the religious processes of the day. Washing your hands before you ate was more important than honoring YAHWEH. Giving to the Temple priests was more important than taking care of your needy parents. Healing on any day but the Sabbath was more important than the issue of healing.
    YAHUSHUA, The Messiah, spoke often about the need to do the will of YAHWEH. This involved loving YAHWEH above all else, and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. It meant caring for those around you, not caring about foolish rules the religious leaders had established for them to follow. Those rules were not given by YAHWEH.
    All you need to do is read the NT accounts of The Messiah and His encounters with the religious leaders of the day to see how powerfully tradition had taken the place of The Word of YAHWEH. Below are some of the accounts of these things: 

Is. 29:13 Therefore YAHWEH said, Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their reverence toward Me is taught by the precept of men: 14 therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”