Me: Welcome to Fire Starter for Jesus!

Rabbi Hylan is with us today to help us understand more about how the Old Testament foreshadows Jesus Christ and how the Old Testament and the New Testament connect. Rabbi Hylan pastored a messianic congregation in Western Washington for many years. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience on the subject. Rabbi Hylan, could you please introduce yourself to the people before we start talking about Pentecost?

Rabbi Hylan: Sure.

So, I’m assuming you have primarily a Christian audience. But who knows, someone may tune in, maybe even a Jewish person who may want to learn about the Jewish roots of the faith.

I was raised in a Jewish home and met my wife in 1967. We got married in 1968. We set off on a journey to find truth. We thought we’d find it in India. We joined an ashram. I wore a turban. We were initiated into transcendental meditation.

On the way to India, we ended up at a Christian community called Labri with Francis and Edith Schaefer. That’s where we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Later we began to call him Yeshua, which is his Hebrew name. That’s maybe another podcast.

Then we backpacked for two years in 15 countries, spent a year in Israel, came back to the states and (this was 1973), got involved in a Jesus movement, and a charismatic revival church in Northern California. That’s where I was eventually licensed and ordained, in 1978 and 1980 respectively.

I went full-time in 1982 and just retired a couple years ago after becoming a pastor for 16 years, and then becoming a messianic rabbi in Newcastle, Washington for 27 years. So that’s the lifetime.

Me: Oh, thank you. Okay. Now, on to Pentecost.

Rabbi, after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, before he ascended to heaven, he told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received power from on high. The New Testament of the Bible tells us that power came on Pentecost, but I don’t see the word “Pentecost” used in the Old Testament. What is Pentecost? And do you know where that word came from?

Rabbi Hylan: I’m glad you asked! What’s interesting about this specific holiday (there’s a lot I could share) Primarily the Christian church over the years has rejected its Jewish roots.

Now almost everybody knows that Jesus was Jewish.

All the apostles were Jewish. Peter, James (whose name was Yakov or Jacob in the original), all the apostles, all the writers of the Old and New Testament were Jewish, save possibly Luke. We don’t know. He could have been a proselyte, a convert to Judaism. We’re not positive, but he definitely understood the Jewishness of the gospel.

 The church has lost a lot of its depth and meaning by the anti-Semitism that was established in the early church. The early church fathers (I’m thinking early – Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Ignatius, Aranius, then later Augustine, John Chrisostum) were all anti-Semites, which is hard for a lot of Christians to grasp and even receive. But that’s true. So, a lot of anti-Jewish things occurred in the early church, and throughout the centuries. That’s another podcast or another discussion, because that’s not really what we want to talk about today. But that’s the root of why I want to share today about Shavuot or Pentecost.

So, this holiday… (You can stop me anytime, ask me questions. Of course, this is your podcast. I’m your guest.) This holiday of Shavuot…

“Shavuot” is a word for weeks in Hebrew. Weeks, because it’s 7 weeks plus 1 day after the Sabbath of Passover. So, we get 50 days from Passover. Seven weeks = 49 plus 1. Which is why we call it Pentecost. The word for 50th in the Greek is “Pentecost.”

Shavout is 50 days from Passover, which is why we call it Pentecost.
The word for 50th in the Greek is “Pentecost.

So, it’s a very important date in God’s prophetic calendar.

Let me begin by reading something from Leviticus 23. This is where we get the foundation for this specific holiday that became known as Pentecost.

So, Leviticus 23, the first couple verses says this. “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, the Lord’s appointed times, which you shall proclaim as holy assemblies. My appointed times are these.’ “

It doesn’t say, “These are the Jewish holidays or the festivals of Israel.” It says these are God’s “appointed times”

So, what’s interesting about these first two verses: it doesn’t say, “These are the Jewish holidays or the festivals of Israel.” It says these are God’s “appointed times” (the Lord’s appointed times is “Moed” in Hebrew). They are to be holy assemblies or holy convocations. Then God goes into these appointed times. One of them, in verse 15, is the feast of weeks.

 “You shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath of Passover. From the day when you brought in the sheath of the wave offering, there shall be seven complete Sabbaths, you shall count 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord.”

Okay, so we begin counting (50 days) the day after the Sabbath of Passover (The Sabbath would have been the seventh day of the week, the last day). The day after the Sabbath is the first day of the week, which we would equate to Sunday.

Biblical days were from sundown to sundown which is another point. Why in the world would someone start counting a day at midnight, right? At midnight one day ends, another day begins? Most people in the world throughout history were sleeping. But God said when the sun goes down, one day ends and another day begins. It makes so much sense to me!

If we fast forward, from Leviticus 23, roughly 1300 years we get to the first century. What happened the day after the Sabbath of Passover in Matthew 28? Well, let me pull that up for you.

Matthew 28:1 says, “Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it, and his appearance was like lightning, and his garment as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. And the angel answered and said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who has been crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, just as he said.’”

After the Sabbath ended, it began to dawn the first day of the week. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. The grave was empty. Jesus had risen from the dead. When? On the first day of the counting. The 50-day count began on Resurrection Day and it ended on Shavout (the Feast of Weeks, or the feast of seven weeks plus one, later to be referred to as Pentecost in the church community). So, that’s the history.

What’s interesting is that biblical holidays have specific months and days on the calendar. But Shavuot doesn’t. It’s the only one that doesn’t have a specific month and day, because it’s directly connected to Passover. You count from the day after the Sabbath of Passover, 49 days plus one. So why is this important? Because Pentecost could be considered the fulfillment of Passover, or you could consider it the completion of the resurrection.

Now, in agricultural terms, this 50-day time period was when farmers were anticipating their ripening crops, the ripening grain, hoping and praying for an abundant harvest. Now, this plays right into Acts Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

So, what was Passover about? Passover was about, well, a lot of things. The Jewish people were slaves 400 years in Egypt. So, freedom from slavery. Passover was about God’s authority over idols and the gods of men. Some of your listeners might know that every plague of the 10 plagues… The Egyptian people worshiped and served those gods. The god of the Nile; the god of lice; the god of frogs; Ra, the god of the sun. All these plagues defeated idols of the Egyptians. So, Passover was about God’s authority over idols.

Passover was about deliverance from persecution and oppression by the enemy. Passover was about God’s provision in the wilderness for 40 years, daily manna, daily bread, and so much more. And ultimately, Passover was about the possession of the land that God had promised to Abraham generations before. So, coming out of Egypt, the first Shavout, or Pentecost, was during the first week of the month of Sivan which was the third month of the biblical calendar. I don’t want to get too technical for your listeners, but let’s look at what happened on the third day of Sivan in Exodus 19. So, I’m going to turn to Exodus 19 in my Bible. the second book of the Bible, Exodus 19.

We read this in verse one: “In the third month, after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. (So, this is important because this is the time of Shavout, later known as Pentecost.) So it came about on the third day when it was morning that there was thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud shofar sound so that all the people who were in the camp trembled and Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they stood at the foot of the mountain.”

I could go on but your people can read it later.

This is the story of God appearing on Mount Sinai giving the ten commandments. By the way, they’re not called commandments in scripture. They’re just called the 10 words. And this incredible scene took place.

Then in Chapter 20:1 it says, “Then God spoke all these words to the people and they heard a voice coming from the mountain and it was God speaking.”

That’s why they said to Moses, “Moses, you go up. We don’t want to get near that place.”

So, only two months before, they were slaves in Egypt. They were delivered from 400 years of slavery and now they were free. But how do you live as free people? They’d been slaves for so long. They were not a nation. They were slaves and they didn’t rest.

By the way, the sign of the covenant that God made with Moses in the wilderness; the sign of the covenant was the Sabbath, the Shabbat, the Sabbath day. Why?

By the way, the sign of the covenant that God made with Moses in the wilderness…
was… the Shabbat, the Sabbath day. Why? Because slaves don’t rest.

Because slaves don’t rest. So, this was very specific. So, how do you function as a nation, as a free nation? The new nation needed boundaries. They needed a way to define their freedom, right? Because freedom without boundaries is tyranny.

So, God gave them 10 foundational principles, his instruction, his teaching.

By the way, the word “Torah” in scripture is normally translated “law.” But “law” is not a good translation of the word Torah. The Hebrew word “Torah” in English means “instruction or teaching,” not “law.” It’s a very different feel, if you look at it that way.

We don’t want to reject God’s instructions. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, he did not come to abolish the Torah. (It says law, right?) He did not come to abolish the Torah (or the prophets), to teach his own instructions, but that they might be fulfilled in him.

So, if we reject the Torah or the law, we have to reject the creation story. We have to reject Noah and the flood, Abraham, all kinds of stuff, and the ten commandments. So, if Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Torah (his instruction), but that they might be fulfilled in him, then what is it about the Torah that we need to keep? And that’s a huge discussion.

I just want to say that in Exodus 32, (this is the story of the golden calf when Moses went up on the mountain to intercede for the people), he came down and Aaron had made a golden calf. When Moses approached Aaron, he said, “Aaron, why did you do this?” Aaron says, “Well, the people made me do it.”

Yeah, right, Aaron. Like he had no volition in this creation.

But Moses comes down. He was so grieved by the idolatry of his kinsmen that he actually offered his own life to sacrifice for God, if God would spare them and forgive their sin. But God said, “I will punish them for their sin.” And 3,000 people died.

Well, what happened in Acts Chapter 2?

So, now I’m going to jump ahead to Acts Chapter 2 again. Remember I just mentioned that in the wilderness 3,000 died because of their rebellion. Now we see in Acts 2:40 “with many other words Peter solemnly testified and kept on exhorting the Jewish people saying, ‘Be saved from this perverse generation.’ So, those who had received his word were baptized and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.”

Now, to me, this is no coincidence. In Exodus 32, three thousand died for rejecting God’s word. In Acts 2 on Pentecost, 1300 years later, three thousand were born again after receiving God’s word.

This is one of the mysteries of God. People say, “Oh, 3,000 people were killed. God must be mean and angry.”

Then 3,000 come into the kingdom. There’s a much bigger story taking place here. You know, a day is but a thousand years to the Lord. A thousand years is but a day. And we put so much stock in these 70, 80, 90 years that we’re alive on this earth, but really, it’s a blink. It’s a vapor. It’s temporary. But we’re going to live forever and spend eternity with God.

So, I don’t know when this podcast is going to be aired, but Pentecost Sunday in 2026, is May 24th.

Pentecost Sunday in 2026, is May 24th.

For me, it’s a really important day. Of course, I’m a Jewish believer. But for many churches, maybe the majority, they don’t do anything on Pentecost Sunday. They just say, “Well this is Pentecost Sunday,” and they preach on something else, or do something else. But to me it’s such a big deal because it’s the fulfillment of Acts Chapter 2.

Most people say the church began in Acts Chapter 2 on Pentecost. I don’t say that. Maybe you do. People ask me, “When did the church begin?” I say, well, it began in Genesis 12 when God called Abraham out of the Chaldeans and he said, I will bless those who bless you and he who curses you I will curse and through you, Abraham, through your seed many families of the earth will be blessed.

God’s covenant that he made with Abram at the time was land and people.

 He’s going to give him a specific piece of real estate which is currently the nation of Israel. But then it included from the river in Egypt to the Euphrates. So that includes all the Sinai desert, Jordan, parts of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq (because the Euphrates is in Iraq), and maybe a bunch of Saudi Arabia. That was the land that God gave to Abram.

So, the church began when God made a covenant with Abram. It says in Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

It says in Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

The Apostle Paul

Now, not heirs according to blood, because there’s physical descendants of Abraham like me. Then there’s spiritual descendants, like you; Christians who’ve accepted this covenant. So, Pentecost is important, Jewish roots are important, and the church began, I believe, in Genesis 12. We see it being fulfilled, God’s plan throughout history.

Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, 50 days after the Resurrection, definitely was a hallmark, and a huge springboard for the church. The church took-off because thousands got saved. Three thousand on that day and then maybe a few days or a few weeks later, another 5,000 and the church was growing like crazy. Some estimates say that there were 100,000 Jewish believers in the early church before it was even called the church. You know, the early believers were all Jewish up until Acts Chapter 10, the first recorded gentile, Cornelius gets saved.

So, depending on which historian you talk to, from Acts 1 to Acts 10 is anywhere from 10 to 27 years, and there were no Gentiles. They were all Jews celebrating, worshiping Yeshua. Their Messiah, had come. He was filling them with his Holy Spirit and they were spreading the gospel. The church was growing and it was quite a phenomenal time until 70 AD, when the Romans decided, “We’re going to squelch this opposition.”

 The rest is history. That’s my monologue.

Me: Okay, I have been reading from Leviticus 23 about the Feast of Weeks and what the Jewish people were instructed to do back then. Something about two loaves of bread, seven lambs, a bull, two rams, a drink offering, and then a male goat. There’s a lot of different offerings being talked about for the original Pentecost. So, the priests had two loaves of bread. They waved them or something. Do you have any idea?

Rabbi Hylan: Yes, the first harvest is the barley harvest. That was celebrated right after Passover. It’s called “The Feast of First Fruits” or “Bikkurim.” That’s also in Leviticus 23. Since you’re there, let me turn to Leviticus 23 again.

So in Leviticus 23:9, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheath of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest, he shall wave the sheath before the Lord and for you to be accepted on the day after the Sabbath.’ The priest shall wave it.’”

This is again the day after the Sabbath of Passover that became Resurrection Day. And to me for Christians this should be so important and so exciting. They would take the first fruits of the barley harvest. While the barley was ripening, the priest would go into the barley field. He would find the barley that was ripening earliest and he would wrap a ribbon around that stack or stalks of barley.

Later, when he goes out to harvest, he could pick the first fruits, the ones that ripened first. Then they would wave that barley as a wave offering, saying, “God, thank you so much for providing the early harvest.”

Well, I mentioned earlier, during the 50-day count from this day to Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks, 49 days plus one) the wheat harvest was ripening. After the wheat harvest, they would grind the wheat berries and make bread. Then they would wave two loaves of bread before the Lord and thank God. “Thank you for the late harvest, the second harvest.”

 There’re different interpretations of why the two loaves. To me as a Jewish believer, that’s a picture of the Jew and Gentile. That’s the one new man. Think about that.

They would wave two loaves of bread before the Lord and thank God….
That’s the one new man. Think about that.

Me: Yeah, I see that.

Rabbi Hylan: That’s the one new man, Jews and gentiles together as Paul talks about in Ephesians 2. According to Ephesians 2, the Jew doesn’t join the church. The Gentile joins the nation of Israel. That’s another discussion.

You can see in Ephesians 3 a mystery that’s been revealed; that Gentiles can now be part of the kingdom of God.

What happened over the centuries? Gentiles became arrogant. It’s just what Paul warned against in Romans 11. Gentiles became jealous, disillusioned, and deceived. I think it’s because the church began to believe the Jews killed Jesus. They called it “deicide,” the killing of God. And that’s why there was so much anti-Semitism, so much hatred toward the Jewish people.

 But nobody killed Jesus. He offered his life freely as sacrifice. In fact, he said he could call down legions of angels to save him if he needed to. Peter, in the garden, cut the ear off a Roman guard. So, this whole idea that the Jews killed Jesus is bogus. It’s error. But that idea became ingrained in the early church.

Me: The Romans were as responsible for that as the Jews, maybe more so.

Rabbi Hylan: Yeah, but the Romans didn’t kill Jesus either! I mean, technically Jesus freely gave his life as a lamb led to slaughter. It was his choice. He could have stopped the whole thing if he wanted to.

Me: Right. He could have. Yeah, that’s true.

Rabbi Hylan: Yeah. So, Gentiles join the commonwealth of Israel. In Ephesians 3 it also says, “the household of faith.” Then in Ephesians 3, Paul says, “Now this is the mystery revealed.” He says it so clearly.

Paul says in Ephesians 3, “By revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in brief. And by referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and the prophets in the spirit.” And to be specific, here we go. “That the Gentiles are fellows and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel of which I was made a minister according to the grace of God.” So, so that’s another interesting perspective. That is a reason why this podcast is important, a reason why Christians’ understanding their Jewish roots are so important.

Part Two

Me: We are picking this up a few days later and continuing our conversation about how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament and how Jesus is foreshadowed by the spring feasts.

So, Rabbi, good to see you again. Could you help us understand how the Abrahamic covenant, which you talked about a lot in the first part of our interview, relates to the new covenant?

Rabbi Hylan: Well, that’s a really good question. What I really appreciate about you and what you’re doing here is you’re connecting the big picture. Most Christians (I would say most. I don’t know what the percentage is, but it’s a huge majority of Bible believing Christians), don’t really understand the Jewish roots of their faith.

They quote the Old Testament. They love the Old Testament. And they understand how important the creation story is, and Noah and the flood, and Abraham (We’re going to get to Abraham in a minute), and the whole history of Israel.

But when it comes to the church, all that previous history to the average Christian is insignificant, except for some historic value. I would say they don’t get the spiritual value and impact that understanding the Jewish roots of the Christian faith really has for us as believers. It’s not a salvation issue because we are saved by grace through faith plus nothing. But it’s an understanding of how we walk out our faith and how we can grasp God’s picture, the big picture that God created, 3,500 years ago basically.

So, you ask about the Abrahamic covenant, and you can interrupt me at any time, ask questions. Of course, this is your podcast.

 So, the Abrahamic covenant was actually a covenant that God made with Abram in Genesis 12. It started in Genesis 12 where God said to Abram, (“Avram” in Hebrew, the B is actually a V sound in Hebrew, “Avram.” If you want a Hebrew lesson, the R is rolled where you gargle. So, it’s “Arvam.” Anyway, I’ll call him “Abram,” for most of your people will feel better about that.

Later, God changed his name from Abram to Abraham; from the father of many to, the father of a multitude. So, in Genesis 12, God tells him to leave Ur of the Chaldeans, and I will send you to a place and that you know not of. So, Abram believed God.

Later we see, I think in Genesis Chapter 17, he believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (which the apostle Paul, also … refers to in Romans 4 if I’m not mistaken). Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.

So, because Abram believed, God makes a covenant with him. He says, “I will bless those who bless you and he who curses you I will curse, and in you, Abram, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

That’s quite an amazing promise, right? How could that be? I mean, Abram didn’t have any children. Yet, He’s going to use this man to bless all the families of the earth. Now we understand, fast forward, that the Messiah is going to come through Abraham’s loins, right? Therefore, every family could be blessed through the loins of Abram.

So, what was his covenant? The covenant was twofold. Covenant God promised, I will give you seed or descendants, offspring that will be like the stars in the universe. If you can count the stars, that’s how many offspring you’ll have. That’s in Genesis 12. Then later, God says it’ll also be like the sand of the seashore. If you can count the sand of the seashore, that’s how many descendants you’ll have. Now, I don’t know if anybody’s ever tried to do that; it might be an impossible task. But that was the covenant.

The sign of the covenant was circumcision. This was going to be the sign that set Abraham’s offspring apart from everyone else in the world, from all the Gentiles.

 Okay. So, how does that covenant relate to the New Covenant for Christians? Well, … what is the new covenant? Now, this is another, really interesting discussion, and it connects to Passover. One of the questions you wanted to ask me a little bit later is how do the festivals of Israel have impact for Christian today? Well, in every way is the answer.

So, when Yeshua (Jesus), was celebrating the last supper…. I would say most Christians know that was a Passover meal, what we call a seder, the Passover seder. But they don’t really get the significance and the history.

Okay, it’s Passover. Big deal. We (Gentile Christians) don’t celebrate Passover, but Jesus did. This is the last supper. The last supper was the last meal Jesus had with his disciples. It was where he said that one of them would betray him.

He washes their feet at the last supper. He talks about the lamb of God. Then he tells them he’s going to be betrayed. From the last supper he goes to the Mount of Olives and that’s when he’s betrayed by Judas.

At that Passover seder, Yeshua said something very important. Now, there’s four cups of wine that are taken during the Passover seder. The third cup is called the cup of redemption. Jesus (Yeshua) picked up this cup and he said, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.”

Jesus (Yeshua) picked up this cup and he said,
“This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.”

Now, I wish I were a little birdie on the shoulder of one of the apostles at that last Passover because when he said, “New Covenant,” their eyes must have gotten wide. There’s only one place in the entire Bible… the only Bible they had was the Old Testament at the time.

By the way, I call it the Old Testament and the New Testament for the sake of most of your audience. However, none of the apostles, not Jesus, no one called it, “the Old Testament.” It was “The Hebrew Scriptures”. It was, “The Word of God,” the only word they had because the New Testament hadn’t been written yet. And I don’t like calling it, “The Old Testament,” because that came about in the 4th Century with Jerome, when he translated the Greek Bible into Latin, He started referring to the Old Testament and the New Testament. I just like calling it, “The Hebrew Scriptures” and “The Greek Scriptures” and “The Bible.”

 Anyway, there’s only one place in the entire Hebrew Scriptures where the phrase “New Covenant” appears. So, when Jesus (Yeshua) said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood,” all the disciples would have thought about Jeremiah 31. Now, why is that?

Every Jew knew about the covenants, because God is a covenant-keeping God.

Every Jew knew about the covenants, because God is a covenant-keeping God. They knew about the covenant God made with Abram. Even before that, the covenant God made with Noah when he said, “I will no longer destroy the earth by flood” and “the sign of the covenant is the rainbow.”

The sign the covenant God made with Noah is the rainbow.

Every Jew knew about Noah and the ark and the covenant. Every Jew knew about the covenant God made with Abram in Genesis 12. That’s their covenant: “I will bless those who bless you. He who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

 And the sign of the covenant was circumcision.

The sign of the covenant God made with Abraham was circumcision.

God’s promise was descendants and land. A specific piece of real estate which was currently known as Israel, but much larger. The covenant was people, descendants, seed, and land (a piece of real estate from the river in Egypt, to the Euphrates up somewhere in Lebanon, down into Saudi Arabia. It included all the Middle East as we know it today, including Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. That was the land that God promised to Abram.

They knew about the covenant that God made with Moses. The Jewish people knew God made a covenant with Moses in the wilderness. God gave them the Ten Commandments. He taught them how a nation should operate. You know, they were slaves for 400 years. Now they’re a nation. What do they do? They need boundaries. They need laws, precepts, statutes. And God gave all this information to Moses. He wrote it down in what we call, “The Torah,” the five books of Moses.

The sign of that covenant that God made with Moses was the Sabbath.

The sign of that covenant that God made with Moses was the Sabbath.

Why was it the Sabbath? Because slaves don’t rest. For 400 years they were slaves. Now they’re free men. How do free men, free women; how do they live? What do they do, without killing each other? God gave them the rule book of how to live as the nation that became known as Israel.

Okay, fast forward I don’t know how many years from the wilderness to Jeremiah. I’m going to guess it’s four, five, 600 years. I’d have to look on a timeline. Doesn’t matter. Hundreds of years later, Jeremiah writes Jeremiah 31, and I actually pulled it up so I could read it to you.

Really easy numbers to remember, Jeremiah 31:31: “Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah.”

This is the only place the phrase “new covenant” appears! So, when Jesus holds up the cup and says this cup is the new covenant in my blood, this was the only place where it’s describing a new covenant. And from Jeremiah to Jesus is about 600 years. So, sages and rabbis were wondering all this time, what in the world does this mean? What is this new covenant all about?

Well, Jeremiah writes what God tells him to write. And here’s what the Lord says: “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke.”

 So, Egypt comes up all the time, over 700 times in the Bible. Egypt is very important. And so, this Passover that Jesus was celebrating, it was about deliverance from Egypt. This is one thing we could talk about later, but it’s important now because Jesus was celebrating Passover.

So, the Christian needs to ask himself, “What was the significance of Passover?” It was deliverance from oppression. It was salvation from our enemies.

Me: That translates now to freedom from sin, freedom from slavery to Satan, freedom to choose and live.

Rabbi Hylan: Exactly. In fact, the Apostle Paul (I like calling him Rabbi Shaul), the Apostle Paul in Romans 6 says that because of the resurrection of Jesus, we are no longer slave to sin. Right?

That was important for me. I got saved later in life. I had a lot of sins to confess and I realized I was no longer slave to those things. That’s another discussion, but it’s a good point to share with people, when they want to know about the gospel.

So, the Passover was important. He’s going to make a new covenant, not like the one when they came out of Egypt. Okay, that was the one they made with Moses, which they broke over and over again.

My covenant, he says, “’This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after these days,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my Torah within them…’” (Torah, the word normally translated “law” is the word “instruction.” I think I mentioned that last time in part one.)

“’…I will put my teaching, my Torah within them and on their heart I will write it.’”

“’…I will put my teaching, my Torah within them and on their heart I will write it.’”

Now, this is interesting because up until this point, the word of God, the Torah, was written with a pen, an ink on animal skin. And God says, “I’m going to write it on your heart, and I’m going to put it inside of you.” What does this mean? People were wondering for years, what does this mean?

“’I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall they shall all know me the least of them to the greatest of them declares the Lord.’”

 So that was different, because up until this time and even after this time the covenant hadn’t been fulfilled yet. In order to sacrifice, you had to go to the temple. You had to go to the priest. There was a system, priest, and sacrifice, in order to get forgiveness of sin. You had to go to the priest. It’s where the Catholic Church got their system from, by the way. You have to go to the priest to confess your sin. But they don’t have to do that anymore in the new covenant.

“‘They will all know me,’ says the Lord, ‘from the least to the greatest.’”

“‘They will all know me,’ says the Lord, ‘from the least to the greatest.’”

They don’t have to go to the priest any longer. And in the New Covenant, the last point says, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

 What is iniquity? Iniquity is the inner drive to sin. God says, “I will forgive that inner drive to sin, your iniquity, and I will remember your sins no more.” Or in common language, I will forget your sins. Now this is a mind-blower this whole idea because the all-knowing, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God; the God, who knows all, has chosen to forget something. Only place in the Bible, it says that. What has he forgotten? Our sin, (because of) the new covenant.

God, who knows all, has chosen to forget something….
What has he forgotten? Our sin, (because of) the new covenant.

What is the new covenant? “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” That’s where we get these songs. We’re washed in the blood. Our sins are washed away by the blood of the lamb. As a new believer, I had no idea what I was singing. I didn’t know what that meant. Washed in the blood. That’s gross, you know. But …our sins were as scarlet and now they’re white as snow.

You’re no longer a slave to sin. “If you can confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive your sin and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness.” And in that cleansing, God has chosen to forget our sin.

You know, I’m sitting here at my computer and you’re at your computer. On my computer I have a little note right here on the bottom left. I didn’t date it. I wish I had dated it. But a couple years ago, I was sitting here and an old sin came to mind, a sin from 50, 60 years ago. I was in my early 20s. That’s dating me, I know. And I said, “Oh, God, thank you for forgiving me of that sin.” And I heard a little voice in my head say, and I’m reading it right now, “I don’t remember that sin.”

And I was stunned. And then I stopped and I heard it again. It wasn’t audible, but it’s in my head. That’s happened to me a couple times. I hear this voice in my head. I don’t remember that sin. I said, “Oh, of course you don’t. You’ve chosen to forget it under the blood of the lamb in the new covenant.”

“I hear this voice in my head. I don’t remember that sin.”

Rabbi Hylan

So, the Abrahamic Covenant is fulfilled in the New Covenant. And that’s why Paul could say in Galatians 3, and I know it by heart pretty much, but I’ll just read it to you because I have my Bible right here. That’s why Paul could say, “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

Now, you’re not natural heirs like me. I’m a Jew, born a Jew. I’ll die a Jew. I’m of the physical descendants of Abraham, but I’m a descendant also, because I’m a believer in Yeshua, in Jesus. I’m of the spiritual seed of Abraham or what he calls the offspring heirs according to promise.

So, all Gentiles are now also Abraham’s offspring in a spiritual sense. And so, we see that scripture in Romans 4. I don’t have to read it. I mentioned earlier that Abraham had faith. So, it’s the faith chapter. He believed and it was reckoned to him or credited to him as righteousness. I think it’s John 8, where Yeshua says, “before Abraham was I am.” That’s when the Pharisees picked up stones to throw at him. They said you’re making yourself greater than our father Abraham. See if I can find that real quick. It’s kind of an interesting passage:

“’Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad.’ The Jews therefore said to him, ‘You were not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am…’” (This statement hearkened back to Exodus when Moses was at the burning bush and he said to God, “What will I say to Pharaoh? Who will I say has sent me?” He said, “Say, ‘I Am,’ has sent you.”) “…Therefore, they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”They knew what he was saying.

So, Abraham is important obviously for our faith. But the  New Covenant comes into a fulfillment by the Old Covenant. They’re one covenant for us. Hope that answers your question. It’s a long answer. It’s great question!

Me: So, you talked about the significance of the cup, the third cup being the redemption cup as a part of Passover. There was also a lamb at Passover. Doesn’t that also represent Christ?

Rabbi Hylan: Yes, of course. So, the cup was the sign of the covenant. Every covenant has a sign. Yeshua said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” So, the sign of the new covenant is his blood.

So, the sign of the new covenant is Yeshua’s blood.

It was the blood of a lamb that was shed at the original Passover. And I’m not going to go into all the details. They can read it in Exodus 12. The Israelites would take a branch of hyssop, dip it in the blood, and put the blood over the lentil and doorposts of their house. Some of your audience would know that would form a cross or so it would seem.

And when the destroyer came through Egypt, he passed over the homes that had the blood. Now, I wonder how many Gentiles, Egyptians, or foreigners who knew about this act, tried it. I just wonder if any of them did it themselves.

Me: Or, if they went in the house of their Hebrew neighbors that night and hid!

But yeah, that sign of the blood protected them from destruction, just as the blood of Jesus protects us from destruction and gives us entrance into God’s family and into all the promises, and into eternity.

Rabbi Hylan: Amen. Amen. It’s beautiful.

So, a lamb’s blood was shed at Passover. They would eat the lamb during the original Passover.

Yeshua said, you know, he earnestly desired to eat this Passover with his disciples. If Jesus earnestly desired to eat the Passover with his disciples, I think we should earnestly desire to understand why he earnestly desired to eat the Passover with them.

I think we should earnestly desire to understand why he earnestly desired
to eat the Passover with them.

And so, we celebrate Passover every year. I’ve done it every year of my life. It’s a lot of years. It’s become more and more meaningful every year.

So, when John the Baptist saw Jesus, what did he say? “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” It’s a beautiful picture that all should understand.

Me: Good point. So, since we’re our time is running on, could we talk about the second feast, the Feast of First Fruits?

Rabbi Hylan:  Sure. So, the Feast of First Fruits. If you go to Leviticus Chapter 23, God gives to Moses all these festivals. First the Sabbath; then Passover; the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and then the Feast of First Fruits. The Feast of First Fruits is called Yamha Bikkurim, the day of the first fruit. And it’s also the first day of the counting of the Omer.

The Omer is a sheath of wheat. And God says, when do you start counting? The day after the Sabbath of Passover. So, they start counting 50 days after the Sabbath of Passover. The day after the Sabbath is the first day of the week… What happened, about 1300 years later, the day after the Sabbath of Passover?

Jesus is crucified. The women go to the tomb on the dawn of the first day of the week, and they find the grave empty.

So, on the Feast of First Fruits, after the last supper of Yeshua, they start counting the omer, and he’s resurrected from the dead.

The omer is counted 50 days beginning on the day of his resurrection. Now it says in scripture that he spent 40 days with them. That’s the first 40 days of the 50-day count. Ten days later was Shavuot, Pentecost. Shavout means Feast of Weeks because it was seven Sabbaths plus one day, 50 days. That’s when we get to Acts Chapter 2.

Me: Go right on. How does Acts Chapter 2 relate? Go ahead and expand on that a little bit and then we’ll pray.

Rabbi Hylan: Well, Acts Chapter 2 was the fulfillment of God’s plan for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So many Christians think… This is what I wanted to communicate: the last Passover wasn’t a one-off holiday. Shavout wasn’t a one-of-a-kind event that just happened out of nowhere. The Jewish people had been celebrating that festival for 1300 years, since Leviticus 23.

It says in Acts Chapter 2:1, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Well, that’s not exactly what the Greek says. If you have a good Bible, in the margin mine has a note. It says in verse one of Chapter 2 that the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled, it wasn’t a one-off, it was being fulfilled.

The Jewish people had been celebrating Shavout (Pentecost) for 1300 years….
Shavout wasn’t a one-of-a-kind event that just happened out of nowhere.
It was being fulfilled with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2.

 Lord, thank you for today. Thank you for Mary. I pray that people would hear this word. It would get into their hearts and their minds and they would be transformed, and it would be significant to enhance their walk with you in the mighty name of Yeshua. Amen.

Me: I agree. I pray for the people that we would all better understand the importance of the Jewish people. the importance of the history of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then all of his sons, and what they went through, and how we learn from that, and how Jesus came from that root.

Thank you, Lord, for these insights, that pastor Rabbi has blessed us with his time; with sharing his understanding and his knowledge with us. So, we just pray and bless him back. Thank you for him in his fairly new retirement, He’s on to new things.

Maybe for just a minute …you could share. You’re thinking of starting a podcast. Could you talk about that?

Rabbi Hylan: Well, I have no information yet, but I’m definitely starting a podcast. I’m starting an LLC for my ministry and, Lord willing, it’ll be blessed and God will use it.

Me: So, maybe down the road if people see this they can hunt for you online somewhere, but we don’t know where.

Rabbi Hylan:  Google my name. It’s one of a kind.

Me: Yeah. Hey, your last name. Can you tell the people?

Rabbi Hylan: Yeah. Slobodkin. Hylan. H-Y-L-A-N  S-L-O-B-O-D-K-I-N. We’re toying with either RabbiHylan.com or TheRabster.com (the Rabbi – Pastor).

Rabbi Hylan: Well, thanks, Mary.

Me: Okay. Well, thank you very much for your time, and goodbye to the audience.

‘I’m definitely starting a podcast…
H-Y-L-A-N S-L-O-B-O-D-K-I-N
We’re toying with either RabbiHylan.com or TheRabster.com