And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”. Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”  And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

At last a scribe with no feeling of enmity towards Yeshu asks one of those questions that was much debated among the scribes. And this scribe finds himself in full agreement with Yeshu about the order of importance of the commandments (bka’-khrims).

It is with love that we should obey our compassionate God; and with love we should serve other men whom He also loves. The people around who were listening knew Yeshu was right and that there was no need to debate such things.

Jeusu said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scripture nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘ I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.”

The Sadducees were pouring scorn on the idea of a man having an eternal, unfading ‘me’ (soul) which continued in heaven.

Yeshu said that they were wrong because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – now long dead – continued to live with a self-mind as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in God’s presence.

Further, he said they were wrong because the dead indeed have a body, but not one with attachments like our earthly body. God had the power to give us new spiritual bodies, whose self-minds would also possess a pure awareness, and thus be able like the angels to communicate with God Himself.