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

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

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

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

Audience: Yes.

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

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

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

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

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