But a rabbi with Shmekah could make up his own yoke.
This is how they determined if a rabbi had authority or not. When you graduated from rabbi school, they would baptise you - because they baptised you anytime you changed social status. Specifically if you went from unclean to clean, they would baptise you, to declare you can be touched now, without contaminating people.
This is why we get baptised today - it’s a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ; but bigger than that, it is publically declaring: I was once unclean, and now I am clean.
If you went from non-rabbi, to rabbi, they would baptise you – and at the baptism, we've got to decide who has Shmekah, and who doesn't. Here's how they decided that:
You had to have two verbal witnesses at your baptism. Two people would speak out for you, at your baptism, which was basically ordination.
It says when Jesus was 30 years old, He went out to the desert to be baptised - so Jesus is graduating from rabbi school.
He goes into the water, and John says: “Behold, the lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world; whose sandals I am not worthy to untie! That was witness #1.
John baptises Him; and Jesus comes up out of the water, and He's a regular rabbi without authority - until a second voice speaks. The second voice came from heaven - and it says the whole of the crowd heard it.
So now, Jesus isn't just a rabbi - He's a rabbi with Shmekah.
He then spent the rest of His life wrecking everybody else's yoke!
This followed Him His whole life - “You do not teach as the other rabbis teach; but You teach as one with authority”.
It meant: we've never heard a yoke like this before. You must have authority to teach this yoke; otherwise you don't have any rights to teach this yoke. So where did you get your authority from?
His reply: from the same authority John the Baptist had - because John the Baptist was the one that witnessed Him.
So Jesus isn't just a rabbi - He's a rabbi with authority.
The first thing a rabbi would do is: he had to have disciples - because a rabbi without disciples was not a rabbi. So where would you get your disciples from? From the Beit Talmud - the school of disciples.
The rabbi would go back to the Beit Talmud, walk through the Beit Talmud, and he would look for the right student. The question wasn't whether or not the student knew the word, because remember: everybody in the Beit Talmud had memorised the Torah; and had wowed the teachers of the law with their questions.
It wasn't a matter of competency, or knowing the word. The rabbi would walk through the Beit Talmud with one question: do I believe that he can do even greater things than me?
If the rabbi believed that the student could do even greater things than him, he would ordain him as a disciple in his rabbi school with two words: Follow me. Follow me. Follow me. Follow me.
Every Hebrew boy longed to hear the words of a rabbi saying “follow me”, but most of them only heard: I'm sorry, you don't have what it takes. You're disqualified from ministry. Go back and earn a living at your family trade.
So Jesus has to get Himself some disciples. Now you would think that being a rabbi with authority, He would go get the best students from rabbi school - but He doesn't!
He goes to the banks of a lake, and He finds some fishermen, and He says: Simon, Andrew - follow me.
These guys have longed to hear the words of a rabbi saying “follow me” their whole life, but instead they heard: I'm sorry, you're disqualified from ministry.