Chambumo-ron Lectures & Discussion 10th May 2025 - Session 1/4

So, good morning everyone and uh welcome to those of you who are online as well. It's quite interesting. It's David not David Raymond puts them online on YouTube. About 500 people will be watching some of them now. So, that's interesting. Didn't realize it's going to be so popular. Anyway, so here we go. This is day four, a discourse on Cham Boomeron. And just to remind you, discourse, I explained it before. It's a formally an orderly and usually extended expression of thought on a subject. So I didn't expect

that the thought on this particular subject was going to be as extended as it is. Spent four days, I'm still only on the third lecture. Whereas usually when people are teaching this on a workshop, they go through each lecture within an hour because all they do is just read off the bullet points. Whereas I'm interested in trying to unpack the things that are on these slides and try and make sense of them and try to help you to also you think about these things come to your own conclusions really

because at the end of the day I'm a teacher. I don't do indoctrination. Uh I'm just trying to teach and uh came across this uh a few weeks ago. Anybody who teaches at the age of 50 what he was teaching at the age of 25, I better find another profession. If in 25 years nothing has happened which proves to you that your ideas were wrong, it means you're not living not in a living field or perhaps a part of a religious sect. And then this is by someone called Noam Chomsky who's a Marxist mostly focused upon language

but also was very much involved in the leftwing politics. Quite old now never really liked him but I thought this was interesting. He said also a language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language. Anyway, so I was thinking about this. So, when I first heard the principle, which is 50 years ago, um people sometimes ask me when is the first time you ever taught? And I said, well, I went for a two-day workshop down in Cle House in

um July 1975. And I just soaked it all up. And then I wanted to go home, but they tried to persuade me to stay for 7 days. There's no transport back to London. So, I said, "Oh, it's okay. I can manage." I went outside Clef House, stuck my thumb out as people used to do in those days and hitchhiked back to London. And then the person who was um who gave me the lift asked me where I'd been. And I said, "I just been to a workshop about, you know, some new religious ideas." And he said, "Can you tell me about it?"

And so I just spent the whole time, two and a half hours between getting picked up and getting back to London just telling him all the things I'd heard during this workshop. But I wasn't just But then I started listening to myself and I real I was telling him things that I hadn't heard, telling him things that I didn't know that I knew. I just felt the Holy Spirit was just speaking through me and it's the most extraordinary experience that I that I had and which I've had over and over again uh actually for the last 50 years up until started need a bit of brain surgery last this time last year getting a bit more difficult.

But um yeah, so I realized that and my anyway it completely changed my life. That's all I can say. My whole way of understanding things and my main one of my main conclusions was it's just so obvious. I thought why didn't I think of this myself? It's just so clear. It's so obvious. But there were always some things which I felt very uncomfortable about. Particularly the the Bible stories. So if you remember there's uh you know the way the Bible stories have always been taught particularly the story of

um well actually all the Bible stories the new the stories in Genesis always left me feeling very uncomfortable because I always felt there's something wrong in this explanation particularly the one about Jacob and Esau that people would always be teaching that Rebecca did the right thing in deceiving Isaac and Jacob also did the right thing in deceiving Isaac and this was then called heavenly deception and this was again this violated my conscience and so even though I've been teaching for 50 years I was always trying to find a way of reorganizing the pieces in this jigsaw puzzle

so it made sense so it fitted with my conscience and took a long long time and eventually I you know I started reading other people other explanations to try to understand what is going on here and that's when I came across I read a Christian explanations of this story and they also you know said Jacob was an immoral person and couldn't understand why did God choose Jacob you know so and it was always the question why did God choose Jacob Jacob behaved in such an immoral unethical way and then finally I came across you know wrestled with it a long time came across Jonathan Saxs had a couple of sentences in his discussion oh

now it makes sense and a and completely reorganized my whole explanation of the story of Jacob Nau which is what I talked about last time if you remember and so for me all I can say is the way I teach and what I teach has changed dramatically over the last 50 years and so mostly I'm just invited to teach second gen because sometimes some of the older firstg say why can't you teach us the way that we were taught 50 years ago and I said well there are lots of other people who do that but it won't be me the way I See these things have changed for me. The principle has to be living inside you. That's where it is not what's in the book. It has to be living inside you. That's where you can discover the principle. As Moses said, you know, you don't need to go into the sky or cross the sea. It's there inside you.

So that's why the last slide I looks at last week, no, last month was this one here talking about the restoration of the birthright through Jacob and Esau. restoration, the womb of Tamar and Perez, which I'll look at today. All steps in the preparation for the birth, the only begotten son, the only begotten daughter. And there it says, Rebecca, the wife of Isaac, deceived her husband and the firstborn son, Esau, so that the younger son, Jacob, could receive the blessing and restore the birthright.

So, we went through that in quite a lot of detail last month and showed you that actually it wasn't supposed to happen like that. U pres uh what's present president present new wrote the original divine principle what's his wife called now thank you very much anyway she wrote she wrote some things uh about these stories which I thought that's really interesting to see what she has to say and she also I don't think I heard it the quote in last month it comes later in in that lecture series she said

that actually it was a mistake Rebecca shouldn't have deceived e Isaac and Jacob shouldn't have behaved the way he had and and also father again these other quotes I didn't bring in last month because we ran out of time also father said that it shouldn't have happened and the only because he did that he had to go away for 21 years if he hadn't gone away for 21 years he would have been killed you know he had to go away for 21 days 21 years to sort all this stuff out with inside himself that when he came back he could be reconciled with Esau

and the mistake that he made in stealing Esau's blessing could then be restored and he returned to Esau the blessing that he stole from Esau because it wasn't his blessing anyway. The blessing which he which he deserved to receive is the one that Isaac gave him just before he went off to Haran to say that he'd be the heir to Abraham and uh Abraham's heir which is the blessing of the firstborn son. So he'd you know Isaac was going to give that to him anyway. didn't need to steal Esau's blessing

and prolong the whole thing by 21 years such that Jacob and Esau never they were they were reconciled but then they separated again. Yeah, that was the reason. If he hadn't been away for 21 years, you know, is when so much water went under the bridge, they you know, 21 years later, they weren't in a situation where they could live together. But if he been hadn't done what he did, they could have carried on living together and it would have been a very different foundation that what happened. Anyway,

so as I said, this is the last thing I had up last month. Now there's so this is when you actually think about these stories deeply which is what the rabbis do you know Jonathan Saxs does and they have arguments about all these things so they come to the best explanation that's what I'm interested in what is the best explanation of these things and I would say this is the most principled explanation and which you know father also mentioned a few times in his speeches but for whatever reason nobody who ever taught the divine principle ever talked about it in

that People don't study enough. They don't read the Bible enough. They don't read father's words enough. You know, we talked about all these things way back in the 1970s. You know, you need to integrate all this stuff, which is what I do. I have so many quotes from father's lectures in the 1970s and his talk sermons. Anyway, so this is just go through this once more. Then I move on to Jacob and uh not Jacob um Judah and Tamar. Now let us count the consequences of Rebecca deceiving Isaac and Rebecca deceiving

and Jacob also deceiving Isaac. Now let us count the consequences. Isaac, old and blind, felt betrayed by Jacob. He trembled violently when he realized what had happened. He realized it wasn't supposed to happen. Tremble violently. He probably thought, "Oh my god, it's going to be a repetition of when Cain killed Abel." Oh, you know, you can imagine that's probably what Isaac thought. This is a disaster. And saying to Esau, "Your brother came deceitfully." Anybody like to be deceived by their children? No, not at all. Esau likewise felt betrayed

and experienced such violent hatred towards Jacob that he vowed to kill him. That's a repeat performance of Cain and Abel. Rebecca was forced to send Jacob into exile, thus depriving herself of the company of the son she loved more than the two she loved for more than two decades. As for Jacob, the consequence of the deceit lasted a lifetime, resulting a strife between his wives. He shouldn't have had two wives in the first place, let alone two concubines as well. He should have only had one wife. If he hadn't have made this mistake, he wouldn't have gone to Haran. he wouldn't have ended up getting married to Leah who he didn't want to marry etc etc all the result of

that and so when he went down to Egypt to meet um the pharaoh the pharaoh said oh you're such an old man you must have had a really happy life and he said few and evil have been the days of my life he said to the pharaoh as an old man so many lives were scarred by one act which was not even necessary in the first Isaac did in fact give Jacob the blessing of Abraham without any deception knowing him to be Jacob not Esau. Yeah. So this is so important that when we teach the principle we should teach it like this.

So why it is in that particular slide you know the choon they still say that Rebecca's supposed to deceive Isaac and and Esau is a mystery to me. It's just, you know, if you're still teaching the same thing 50 years later, you should retire. Go and get a better job. It's ridiculous. Anyway, so what what did Judah Okay, so the other interesting thing which I've always wondered for years, why was Judah the ancestor of of all Jews? And just why was Judah the ancestor of Jesus the Messiah? Because people always assumed

that because Joseph was the youngest brother, youngest son, youngest brother. Well, Benjamin was younger. Anyway, they always assume that Joseph should have been the heir to the Messiah, but he wasn't. The question is, well, why not? Who made the foundation to receive the Messiah? Just because you're born in a position, particular position doesn't mean you have that authority. Yeah. Some you have to make a foundation to receive the Messiah. So, did Judah make a foundation to receive the Messiah, which Joseph didn't do? Sorry, Judah. Judah. Okay.

So, we'll talk about that. No. Okay. So, Judah's spiritual development. So, Judah was the fourth son of um Leah, not of Rachel. And um he became the ancestor of the Messiah. So, if we look at Judah's spiritual development, it's really important and interesting. So Leah, that was uh Jacob's first wife, who in my opinion of the two sisters, I think he was the one he should have married in the first place. And it will explain why. So Leah conceived again. So she'd already had three sons. She conceived again.

And when she gave birth to a son, she said, "This time I praise the Lord." So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children. So the first three sons, she tal again, she talked to God about it. Oh, I'm hated. I'm She's very grateful to have a son, but she said, "I'm hated by my husband." She felt hated. Hated. Hated. But even though she felt hated by her her husband, and she realized it shouldn't have happened like this, she continually praised God. She continually related all the experiences

that she had in her heart to God. That's really interesting. very deep spirituality, a very deep soul that Leah Leah had, much deeper actually than Rachel. So Judah's name in Hebrew means thank as in gratitude and acknowledge or in conf as in confession. So got a v variety of different meanings this word Judah. Thanks, gratitude, acknowledge and confession as in confession. Then Judas said to his brothers anyway, so much later on then uh the brothers didn't got on well with Joseph because he was the one with a nice coat. He was

so boastful, so arrogant, etc., etc. And so his older brothers hated him and they wanted to kill him. And so that's what they planned to do. But then Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishelites, and let us not and let our hand not be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh. So Judah then, even though his older brother Simeon, the oldest one, was can't remember, but he wasn't around. And Simeon, who's the one

that hated Joseph the most, wanted to have him killed. So Judah, who was two sons lower down than Simeon, said, "Okay, we can't do this. It's not the right thing to do. Let's just sell him into slavery. make at least make a bit of money out of it. So that was Judah then and then much later on Jud Joseph then went off into slavery and then um there was a famine and Jacob sent his sons down into Egypt to buy food and so went down into Egypt to buy food and then Joseph who at that stage having been in prison

and gone through all sorts of challenging situations Joseph said he became the prime minister and he recognized his brothers came in, the ones who sold him into slavery. And obviously it's a huge shock for him and he had to decide what am I going to do with my brothers who just come to visit me. And so he had them all question them, interrogated them, trying to understand who they were, etc., etc. Had them all thrown into prison for three days while he meditated and thought about it. What should I do in this situation? how can I solve this problem

that I have with my brothers and my brothers have with me? And he probably thought, well, it sounds a bit like dad and uncle Esau. They also fell out with each other. And dad had to find a way to be reconciled with his older brother. Maybe I need to find a way in this situation to bring about reconciliation between me and my older brothers to give them the opportunity to apologize for what they did to me. Just as Jacob apologized to Esau for stealing the blessing, Joseph thought, "Okay, actually I need to create a situation, an opportunity for my brothers to restore the mistake

that they made in selling me off to slavery." And then they came back for food another time. And this time he hid his silver cup in Benjamin's sack of grain. And then Benjamin was arrested. And all the brothers are brought back. And they were all, you know, completely dismayed. And they actually said to each other, "Oh, the reason why this terrible thing has happened to us is because of what we did to our brother Joseph all those years ago. God is punishing us." That's the way they felt. They felt guilty. Anyway, Joseph realized, oh, they realize

that what they did was a mistake and they feel guilty about it and they want to Anyway, so he realized they were in that situation. And then Joseph said to his brothers, "Look, I'm not going to put you all in prison. I'm only going to put Benjamin in prison because he's the one who stole my silver cup. The rest of you, you can go home. Go back to Jacob and go back to your mom and dad." And that's what they could have done. They could have done that. And if they'd done that, Joseph would have realized they're still the selfish, nasty brothers

that they were 21 years ago. Because he was actually in Egypt for 21 years. 21 years ago. They still haven't changed. But what happened then is something remarkable. Judah said, "I became a pledge of safety for Benjamin my to my father, saying, if I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father and all my all my life." Now therefore, please let me remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil

that will find my father. And his father would be brokenhearted yet again and his bro father would die. He's already brokenhearted because he would been told that Joseph had been killed. He's brokenhearted because his favorite wife Rachel had died. I think giving birth to Benjamin as far as I remember. And so he would have been brokenhearted. And Jacob Judah didn't want to see that happen to his father. So that's what's remarkable. 21 years before Judah organized Jacob to be sold into slavery.

Now Judah is saying I will go to prison instead of my younger brother. He's exchanging places. So why did he go through that remarkable change within his own life? He obviously changed. He was no longer the same person as he was 21 years before. So what had changed? So one of the interesting things in that particular story in Genesis which nobody will be able to explain before was the story of Judah and Tamar. It's in between in between Joseph being sold into slavery and then going back for food 21 years later

because of the famine. There's another story. And people wonder why is this story there? It's about Judah and Tamar. And I always wondered why is that story there? But then that's what's important. So in a in a prof precise reverse of character callousness. So Jake Judah's very callous has been replaced with concern. Indifference to his brother's fate has been transformed into courage on behalf on his behalf. He was willing to suffer what he once inflicted on Joseph. So the same fate should not befall Benjamin. Even though Benjamin is only his halfb brotherther. At this point, Joseph reveals his identity. We know why Judah has passed the test

that Joseph has carefully constructed for him. Joseph wants to know if Judah has changed and he has. So Joseph then was creating this sort of what do you call these sort of sets something scenario you know what scenario? Yeah. Something to put Joseph, sorry, to put Judah in a similar situation as he'd been in 21 years before to see is he going to do the same thing as he did 21 years ago or is he going to show that he's changed? He's giving Judah the opportunity to be able to say, "I'm sorry for what I did 21 years ago." Even though obviously he didn't realize

that Joseph was the that the prime minister was Joseph, he's giving them that opportunity to come out and to prove that he changed. And that's really important. giving Joe his brother a second chance. That's so important in life. People make mistakes, but you can't think, "Oh, but you made a mistake once." You're always going to make that mistake. Sometimes if you're a wise person, a wise parent or teacher or leader in a company, you realize this person made a mistake. Okay. In order for them to restore

that mistake, I'm going to see if I can arrange for them to find themselves in a similar situation with a silma kind of challenge and see if they're going to overcome that challenge and restore the mistake they made and become a different kind of person. See if they're going to learn from the mistakes that they made. Anybody here never made any mistakes in their life? Just me. Okay. Okay. Welcome, Grant. Now, I remember Grant. First time I met him was in uh in Glasgow, the center there long time ago with your friend who was from the army. I can't remember his name now. Sorry. We were fundraising. Yeah, I remember

that all those years ago. Yeah. Anyways, so um that's that's really important, you know, and that's what Joseph did. A person of extraordinary wisdom. He didn't think, oh, these nasty brothers have come along and just throw him into prison now and punish them. He thought, how can I restore this position? In order to do that, I have to give them a second chance. And that's what he was doing. It's really important. One of the things annoys me about the divine principle is people say, "Somebody fails,

then the providence moves somewhere else." That's not the biblical story. The biblical story is God doesn't say, "Okay, you you failed therefore I'm going to send somebody else is going to do the providence." Sometimes it works out like that, but God always gives people another chance, another opportunity. It's really [Music] important. Oh yeah, here we are. This is a highly significant moment in the history of the human spirit. Where did it come from? This change in his character. So that's what's interesting. He changed.

But what happened such that he'd made those kind of changes? Okay. So Judah then he um afterwards that part of the story selling Judah selling Joseph into slavery Judah got married his wife is a daughter of Shuer a Canaanite and therefore an idol worshipper and they had three sons uh Onan and Shilla. Anyway so when uh got to a certain age it's time for him to get married. So they found a a girl a woman for him to marry called Tamar. She's actually a Jewish convert. He wasn't born a Jew. She converted to Judaism or to belief in it wasn't Judaism. It's a religion in those days. She converted to believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac,

and Jacob. And then, so she got married to. But then in the Bible, it says that died. And the Bible says the reason why died cuz God put him to death because he's a wicked man. Don't know. But anyway, he died. And people often when something like that happens people try to think why did this happen? Yeah. Nowadays you probably wouldn't say that u but that's the way they thought. And so because he died then he um Tamar then was supposed to have a relationship with Onan. And so Onan was the second son

and his responsibility or his duty was to make Tamar pregnant so his older brother could have a son through Tamar. So he's going to give his older brother a son through Tamar and then he's going to marry somebody else himself later. So Onan though he was called spilled deceit he didn't have proper sexual relationship with uh Tamar and so she never became pregnant and it says that God was upset and angry and so Onan was killed as well. Question is well why did Onen think like that? When Judah died what would happen to all the property? It would be divided three ways three sons. If oos died

then it would only be divided two ways. So on would end up with more money more inheritance. So Onuman was thinking well if I give uh a son the inheritance is going to be spit three ways. Okay. Selfish person. Yeah. Anyway, so he died as well. And then uh Judah said, "Well, I'm not going to let uh Tamar have a relationship with Shella cuz a Shella's too young. He's a little boy and b, you know, he might die as well. That's the last thing I want." Anyway, so Tamar then was sent off to uh stay with stay with their parents.

So time passed. Judah's wife died. When the time of when the time of mourning was over, Judah with his friend, that's uh his wife's father, with his friend went to Timna for the sheep shearing because they were shepherds and wanted to cut the wool off the sheep and sell it. Tamar was told, "Your father-in-law has gone to shear his sheep." So she took off her widow's clothes, put on a veil to disguise herself, and sat by the road. She realized by now that even though Shell was grown up, she wasn't going to be married to him. In other words, she couldn't have a child. Judith saw her

and assumed she was a prostitute since she'd veiled her face. That work? You ever seen a prostitute disguising herself? No, I remember when I was a teenager, I went on a school trip, went to Amsterdam and I thought, okay, any ended up wandering around the prostitute area, had these big shop windows with a prostitute with all her makeup and everything and trying to attract customers. So, it doesn't work. Fail in your face. If you're a prostitute, you want to attract people. He left the He left the road

and went over to her. He said, "Let me sleep with you." He had no idea that she was his daughter-in-law. So, what about Judah's actions here? Although the Let's see. I'm just making Yeah, it's the right slide. Although the readers know that God has killed two of Judah's sons, Judah does not. He doesn't, you know, the person who wrote the story put in a little editorial comment, God had killed the sons. Okay, it's not what Judah thought at the time. probably he suspects that Tamar is a lethal woman, a woman whose sexual partners are all doomed to die.

So Judah is afraid to give Tamar to his youngest son, Shella. Perfectly reasonable conclusion. As a result, Judah wrongs Tamar. According to Neareastern custom known from the middle Assyrian laws, if a man has no son over over 10 years old, he could perform the leate lev virate obligation himself. In other words, because Shellah was too young to have a relationship with with Tamar, then the law was that Judah could have had that relationship with Tamar himself to be able to give his son an heir. That's the custom.

That was the law in those days. If he does not do that, the woman is declared a widow, free to marry again. Judah, who is perhaps afraid of Tamar's lethal character, could have just set her free and she could have got married to somebody else. But he does not. He just says, "Go and stay at home with your parents." He doesn't actually declare her to be a widow and doesn't set her free. He sends her to live as a widow. Oh yeah. In her father's house. Unlike other widows, she cannot remarry and must stay chased on a point pain of death. She is in limbo. Yeah. the miserable, terrible situation for a woman in those days to be in. She couldn't get married. She couldn't have any children.

And in those days, especially if you're a woman and you didn't have any children, you were looked down on. Yeah, that's what Rachel experienced. You know, she felt like she was um Anyway, whatever. So, that was, you know, what was going on here. So, was Judah doing the right thing here or the wrong thing? Wrong thing. Wrong thing. Yeah. He was mistreating Tamar. So let's have a look at Tamar's. So Tamar then she as it says there when she heard that uh Judah's wife had died and the morning was over

and he was going to be passing you know through the village to share she his sheep she dressed up put on a nice you know God vocabulary is not there. Hey, with nice clothes as if she's on the catwalk in Paris and she dressed herself up in fine clothes and sat by the road. And so the question is what were the motivation? The father said Tamar knew God loved the lineage of her husband. So she knew that for some reason maybe through prayer as I said she was a convert to believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac

and Jacob. And so she obviously like Leah was living a very spiritual and deep life. She knew she had to protect and continue that lineage. For Tamar, her personal dignity was not a factor. She was only concerned about preserving the lineage which God loved. Since she loved that lineage, she stood in the providential position and she was able to establish the proper condition of heart. with such a heart she had a relationship with her father-in-law. So that's why she did it. And as uh this is the Jewish commentary in the midrash, the oral commentary written oral Torah written down. It was uncharacteristic of Tamar to behave as a harlot. She's a very modest woman, you know, just doing what she's supposed to do.

And she did so solely for the exalted purpose of establishing the name of her dead husband and bearing the pred and being bearing the pre pred thank you predecessor of the royal line. The episode in the tent symbol symbolically reveals Tamar's true countenance disclosing her concealed inner intent which was completely pure. The encounter between Judah and Tamar that would result in the birth of the Messiah was performed with no external covering. So she's completely naked because she's completely shame. She's without sense of shame. She's out the sense of what she was doing wrong or anything like that. She was very

and you know the reason why Judah didn't recognize her because he never seen her face before. She always covered her face normally. Have you ever been read about how wi Muslim women dress in strict, you know, like that? And the only time when they ever take the their veil off is when they're at home. And then the only person man who can see their face is their dad or their husband or their sons. Nobody else. Similar kind of thing. It was going on here. So Judah couldn't recognize her because she is a very modest person.

So it's very complicated. a rabbitic exugesus which I just read out there is a tamer gave convincing Oh yes no this is another uh rabbitic uh explanation what was going on to try and explain what was happening here it's very complicated rabbitic of Jesus is that Tamar gave convincing replies to Judah showing him that she was permitted to him when Judah asked to consult with her to have a relationship with her he inquired perhaps you are a Gentile because he's not allowed to have a relationship with a gentile. She replied, "I'm a convert." She converted to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac,

and Jacob. When he asked her, "Perhaps you marry a married woman." She answered, "I'm unmarried." He asked, "Perhaps your father received money of betroal for you, and you're already a married woman without your knowledge." She replied, "I'm an orphan." Don't think she was an orphan at that stage, but anyway, that's what she said. He further probed perhaps you are uh impure because you're having menration. She answered I'm pure. Okay. So it's interesting. So the midrash presents Judah as meticulous in his observance of the laws regarding married women

and nida. He's so in that sense he's blameless in his generation. Nida is to do with sexual purity. He wasn't going against the customs of those days. In a similar interpretive direction, the Midrash relates that at first Judah did not pay any attention to Tamar, thinking her to be a harlot. When he passed by her, however, and saw that she was she covered her face, he realized that she was not a prostitute because prostitutes don't cover their face because such women do not veil their faces. And

then he turned aside to her. So sort of complicated things going on here within Tamar within Judah and the conversation they had and the conclusions they could reach. Obviously both of them felt somehow that this was what should have happened in that sense. You talk about you know God or the Holy Spirit guiding this kind of thing to take place. Anyway, what happens next is really significant. So 3 months or so later, Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law has been playing the and now she's pregnant whore." Okay.

So was Judah happy to hear this? No. Really upset and angry. So Judah said, "Bring her out and let her be burned." As she was being I forgot to mention. Okay. So Judah didn't have any money on him at the time and said, "I'm sorry, you know, I haven't got any money." So Tamar said, "Okay, give me your your ring and your staff." Shepherd's pole. Shepherd's what do you call these things? Crooks, shepherd's crook and your belt. Okay, which signifies his status and who he was. And he said, "Okay, I'll come back tomorrow with some cash." Anyway,

so Tamar just disappeared. And so when the per when Judah's servant came to give her the cash and to get back these three items, then he couldn't find her. Nobody had ever heard of a prostitute or harlot being by the side of the road. So just he said, "Okay, let's just forget about it then." So and Judah said, "Bring her out and let her be burned." As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, "By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant." The ring, the the shepherd's crook,

and the belt. And she said, "Please identify whose these are, the signate ring, the cord, and the staff." Then Jacob identified them and said, "She is more righteous than I since I did not give her my son Shella." So what could Judah have done? He's got all his friends there who heard about the daughter-in-law getting pregnant. What could he have done? He could have said, "I don't know." Yeah, he could have denied. He said, "I don't know who these are. they're not mine. But by having to own up

and say yes, they are mine, he was losing face in front of all his friends. Now some cultures, is it okay to lose face? No. That is really significant. He lost face in front of his friends because for him transparency and honesty is more important than protecting his own reputation and also saving his daughter-in-law's life. This is really important. So again, this is Jonathan Saxs explains all these things better than me. Judah now understood the whole story. Not only has he placed Tamar in an impossible situation of living widowhood,

and not only is he the father of her child, but he also realizes she hasn't behaved with extraordinary discretion in revealing the truth without shaming him. So she didn't publicly tell the servant these things belong to Judah. She said just give them to Judah and let him take responsibility and make a decision himself. So she was giving him the opportunity at the risk of her life. She didn't want to bring shame on him. This is again another really important thing. She did not want to bring shame on Judah. It is from this act of Tamar

that we derive the rule. This is a Jewish rule needs to be practiced elsewhere as well. that one should rather throw oneself into a fiery furnace than shame someone else in public. And I remember Jonathan Saxs when he was a young when he was young he was a student. He told a story in those days because he came from an Orthodox religious background. There was a conference he went to and there were Jews from lots of different u denominations. The Orthodox, the liberals, the reform. Yeah. And in within the Orthodox tradition, uh, Jewish men can only study with Jewish men.

But anyway, so they're all studying with their rabbi who was an old scholar. And Jonathan Saxs at that stage was very young. And so they're all studying, you know, the Torah. And then a Jewish female student came in and all the male students wondered, "We're not allowed to study with women. And they they looked at the the rabbi. Is he going to kick her out? And he didn't bat an eyelid. He said, "Sit down. Study with us." And afterwards, why why did you do that? Tamar's rule. Do not bring shame on that. If I had treated

that female Jewish student in that way, I would have shamed her. And that's against the law because Judah's Tamar again important principle here that we should also practice. Yeah. One should rather throw oneself into fiery furnace and shame someone else in public. And Tamar risks her life to pres preserve Judah's reputation. Hinduism. Sorry for divorce. If you do what? If you shame your wife in public. Okay, this is a rule I just publicly proclaimed to the world. Jillian just told me it's a rule with or law within Hinduism

that if you shame your wife in public, then it's ground to divorce. And I hope my wife's not listening to this. It's all I can say. But it's something I should we should all know and remember and practice. It's really important. Yeah. So Tamar is the heroine of the story for this reason. She's the heroine of the story, but it has one significant consequence. Judah admits he was wrong. She was more righteous than I. He says this is the first time in the Bible someone's acknowledged their own guilt. It is also the turning point in Judah's life. Here is born

that ability to recognize one's own wrongdoing to feel remorse and to change. Yeah. It's the first time in the Bible and first time in any written literature. I'm sure it's happened before but wasn't written down. It's the first time in any written religious literature that someone, a man especially, admits, "I made a mistake. My fault, took responsibility for it." Yeah. So this is the importance of repentance. So the stories of Judah and his descendant David tell us that what makes Mark what mark a leader what mark it's not yeah sorry I got to put an S in there

that what marks a leader is not necessarily perfect righteousness it is the ability to admit mistakes to learn from them and to grow from them the Judah we see at the beginning of the story is not the man we see at the end and sometimes if you ask I remember there's uh one I can't remember whose name now British field marshall general was asked about how did you get to be here you know and he said well you know the people who paid the price for me to be able to become the kind of general I am today is I learned from the mistakes

that I made when I was responsible for a smaller group of soldiers I learned from those mistakes and that's why I got promoted because I acknowledged I made mistakes I learned from those mistakes I didn't repeat them and so that is why I was I was promoted and I remember um there's two great generals one was called Napoleon the emperor of France and one was called Wellington who was the field marshall general of the British army and Napoleon regularly lost an army because he lost a particular battle sometimes half a million people Frenchmen

and Wellington said if I was if I had done that I would have being fired. Yeah. Important to realize, okay, it's okay to make mistakes, but sooner you make them, the younger you make them, the better. When you get to become a prime minister or chancellor of the of the treasure, you the exjecker like uh Rachel Reeves is now, and you start making mistakes, those are affect the entire country. Yeah. And there's terrible mistakes that have been made today by people who don't have the background. Yeah, that's the problem.

So, you know, personally, I think it's better for old people to become leaders because they made all these mistakes and then anyway, if they're wise anyway, won't make them again. So, I tell you that, this is what Jesus said. I tell you there'll be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who do not need to repent. So Judah then repented. First person in the biblical tradition who genuinely repented in that way. Cain also did but not to the depth that uh Judah did.

And to in the place where the penitent stands even the holy righteous do not stand. So God loves someone who apologizes, repents and is a penitant even more than people who don't make mistakes. Okay. So what happens next? Well, Judah and Tamar becomes pregnant as we know had two uh had twins Perez and Zera. And uh if you know from the story which uh the Bible father talked about, there was a little wrestling match inside the womb and the one who was uh stuck his hand out first had a little red cord tied to it.

Then his went back in. I can't imagine the pain that poor old Tamar was going through for this and then the other one came out first. My goodness. I bet you would have wished we had cesarians in those days. But anyway, so that's how it worked out. So this is understanding restoration, elder sunship inside the womb, purification of the mother's womb. Okay. So let's have a look now at Judah after this. Yeah. So he became the eldest brother even though he was the fourth son. So as I said he he was the one

that all the other brothers listened to. Let's sell Joseph into slavery rather than kill him. He was the fourth son, not the oldest. So his his young his older and younger brothers respected him. You know he has certain degree of wisdom. So in that sense he restored the position of Abel. But and so that was why when he when they all appeared in front of Joseph the prime minister in Egypt, Judah was the one who spoke to the prime minister representing all the brothers. So even though he was not the oldest, he was the eldest. You don't have

that those words in Korean or Japanese, do you? Oldest and eldest. I think it's only in English. So Judah never became the oldest, but he became the most respected, the eldest in that sense. So willing to exchange his life for the life of his younger brother, restored the position of Cain. So he'd already restored the position of Abel, the younger brother, by winning the respect of his older brothers. Now he restored the position of Cain by willing to exchange his life for the life of his younger brother, which of course Cain didn't do.

So he'd overcome the fallen nature of Abel, who was arrogant as Joseph was. He'd overcome the fallen nature of Cain, who killed his younger brother. So he'd overcome his fallen nature. He'd made the foundation of substance. What's the foundation to receive the Messiah? That's right. So Judah obviously was a man of faith but also he made the foundation of substance overcoming the fallen nature of Abel and Cain. So he overcame fallen nature and est Oh yeah established the foundation of substance.

So for him honesty not shame and honor. So for him being an honest person was more important than his reputation, more important than his honor, more important than not not falling into shame, being not not not being shamed. He didn't mind the fact that all his friends probably made fun of him afterwards. You imagine, oh, you know, you told us, you know, you're just about to burn your daughter-in-law cuz she, you know, but who's the one who's, you know, really got her pregnant and shouldn't have done

so and should have allowed her to go get remarried to somebody else? You're the one. So, they probably laughed at him and mocked him on one side, but the other side they thought, could we have done that ourselves? which is more important for us saving face or being honest, open and transparent. So that's the most important thing that Judah inherited and that was first established by Abraham. Abraham went up the mountain. Goodness me going on for ages. Anyway, Abraham went up the mountain to make the sacrifices. Cut up the the cow, the sheep,

but not the doves. How do we know? Because when he went home, you can imagine his wife would have said, "How did the sacrifice go?" Oh, yeah. It went fine. He didn't say that. He said, "Oh, I fell asleep. I didn't cut up the doves." And as because of that, God said, "Our descendants are going to suffer for 400 years in slavery." Can you imagine going home and telling your wife, "Because I made a mistake, I just didn't cut up the birds, our descendants are going to suffer for 400 years in slavery." Do you think Sarah was happy to hear that? No.

But Abraham thought it's more important for me to be open, honest, and transparent than for me to protect my reputation and my honor and not to shame myself. So that's why the story is told. That's why Sarah hold the story and did Isaac and Ishmael and all the children that was part of the family story. And that's why many many years later is written down. Yeah. How do we know how why is it not written in the in the uh Genesis about the fall? Did Adam and Eve openly admit what they'd done? No. They felt shame. They hid it. That's why it's not there. Even though Jews know what happened,

but it's not written there because they themselves didn't own up to it. How do we know that Ham and his wife had sex on the ark when they shouldn't have done? It's not because they didn't open up and admit it and apologize. Yeah. It's only written in the in the oral Torah, the Midrash. In the Quran as well. I'll have to look that one up. I didn't know that. You can read it in the divine principle if you look in different chapters. It's not in that chapter about Noah and the flood. There's a there's one sentence. Okay. What does

that mean? H sort of a hint. Uh two there are two sentences in the divine principal book in different chapters which got a hint about to understand what that sentence means. You have to use your imagination. Anyway, not going to talk about that story today. So, a willingness to admit he was wrong and Tamar was right. He's willing to undergo public humiliation rather than do an injustice. But much he felt his conscience said it's much better for me to be public humiliated in front of everybody to for doing what I did than for a terrible injustice to happen to my daughter-in-law.

So, he then was taking responsibility for his actions. qualities necessary for leadership. Yep, I made a mistake. Really important. So often leaders blame somebody else who made the mistake. Yeah, it's not. It shouldn't be like that. This is why Jesus was descended from Judah because Judah then made the foundation to receive the Messiah. And Judah is where the name Jews comes from. All the 10 tribes are the tribes that were lost. the lost tribes, all Jews are descended from Judah. And that's why Jesus obviously is descended from Judah as well.

And so that's why John says that's why Jesus said, "No greater love is any man than he lay down his he lays down his life for his friend." And that was what Judah was willing to do. He was willing to lay down his own life for the sake of his younger brother Benjamin. Yeah, that's where Jesus got that idea from. Jesus read these stories. He understood this is what it is to be a good person, to be a good leader. This is what it is to be a messiah. I have to behave like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, who, you know, openly admitted about the mistake you made with Basheba, etc., etc. Willing to exchange your life for the life of your friend.

And so this then was Jacob's blessing on Judah. Judah, your brother. So before Jacob died, he blessed all his children. He had um well by that stage he only had 11 sons because um Ben did he I can't remember now. Benjamin was still alive at that stage. I can't remember. Anyway anyway so anyway the point is he blessed all his sons. He wasn't thinking I'm just going to bless one son. and he wanted to bless every single one of his sons just like Isaac wanted to bless not just Jacob but Esau as well. That's what a parent is supposed to do. You don't have favorites. If you have favorites, it causes all kinds of problems with in the relationship between the children. It's really important as a parent to love all your children equally,

but obviously differently because they're all different and to want to bless each one of them. Anyway, so Jacob then blessed Judah. Judah, your brothers will praise you as they already do because he saved their skin in many different ways. Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons will bow down to you. So this was the blessing that uh Isaac wanted to give to uh Esau that his father's sons will bow down to him. This is the blessing that Jacob now inherited. Your father's sons will bow down to you. You're a lion's cub Judah. You return from the prey, my son. Like a lion, he crouches

and lies down. Like a lioness who dare surouse him. The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff between his feet, until he whom it belongs shall come, which is the Messiah. Well, it's David first, but later on the Messiah, and the obedience of the nations shall be his. Okay, I'm going to stop now. It's 11:04. And the next section comes up next. Sorry, it's taking that's how long it takes to get through one slide. That's what a discourse is. You expand it, try to explain it, make sense of it. How does this relate to me personally?

So the principle what we teach should be full of spiritual food. Not theology. Theology is boring. Just about what you're supposed to believe. What's most important is what can change my life and help me to become the person that God wants me to be. And this is what we can learn from these stories because these are the people who were successfully established foundation of faith, foundation of substance, foundation receive the Messiah, which is why Jesus Christ came 2,000 years ago. Okay, let's have a break. How long are we breaking for Raymond? Should we go until 11:20? Okay, that's 15 minutes. Yep. Okay, 15 minute break. There's tea, coffee downstairs,

and um I think there's even some sweet little things. Yeah. Thank you. Uh thanks. Yeah, I need to drink a bit more. Hang on a second. Uh, shrink a bit. Now create some space.