Shmooze Blogger

Considering Our Fewness

2011-08-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

“The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you are the fewest of all peoples…” (Deuteronomy 7:7)

The word “fewest” or least (me'at, or LXX, oligos) is used for inconsequential (Gen 30:15), opposite of many (here, Num 13:18, etc.).

But:

"Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.” (Deuteronomy 10:22)

How can both be true, to be the least but yet numerous as the stars? Rashi says that its that we act like we are the fewest. Other commentators say it is relative to other major peoples in the area, Egyptians, Assyrians, etc.

Notice in Deuteronomy 7:6 (as in 10:22) he is speaking to a 2nd person singular. I believe there HaShem is speaking to the people as a whole nation, one which is set apart as His people. In Deuteronomy 7:7-8 it switches to second person plural. This raises the possibility that He’s speaking to a different group—particularly, the remnant within the nation. Though we are many, it is the remnant of Israel who are few. And it is for the sake of the remnant that the nation is redeemed from Egypt.

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality." It is just as Isaiah said previously: "Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah." (Romans 9:27-29)

Now the remnant is the hope of the nation, the guarantee that one day all Israel will be saved, when they too believe in Yeshua.

Though there were many others, it was the few that was saved with Noah, 1 Peter 3:20. Only the few will enter into life.

Matthew 7:14 "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Luke 13:23 And someone said to Him, "Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?" And He said to them, 24 "Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able."

Revelation 3:4 “But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.”

Luke 12:32 "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.”

As a remnant, we would not exist or be sustained but by His grace (Rom 11:5).

For the sake of this world, the universe is secure; for the sake of Israel, the nations are secure; for the sake of the remnant, Israel is secure; it is for the sake of Messiah that the remnant is secure.

Mourn with those who Mourn

2011-08-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

Tisha B’Av, which translates as the ninth of Av (this year it falls on Aug 8-9), ends a three-week period of semi-mourning which starts with the Fast of Tammuz. The ninth of Av, however, is the peak of this mourning period, where tradition prevents our people from shaving, eating, and entertainment. The reason for this distress is remembrance of events that have happened in the lives of the Jewish people. The rabbis teach that all these things happened on the ninth of Av:

· Sin of the spies which caused the Lord to decree that the people of Israel would not be permitted to enter the land.

· Destruction of the First Temple (586 BC)

· Destruction of the Second Temple (70 AD)

· Fall of Betar, the last fortress to hold out against the Romans during the Bar Kochba revolt in the year 135 AD. This sealed the fate of the Jewish people and beginning the exile from Judea

· One year after the fall of Betar, the Temple area was razed and plowed under by the Romans

· In 1492, King Ferdinand of Spain issued the expulsion decree, setting Tisha B’Av as the final date by which not a single Jew would be allowed to walk on Spanish soil.

· World War I – which began the downward slide to the Holocaust.

Its Meaning, Today and Tomorrow

Though most Jewish people are secularized and perhaps therefore unaware of Tisha B’Av, the Orthodox Jewish community takes it quite seriously. Thus if your Jewish friends and acquaintances are observing this day, treat them as one in mourning, and do not invite them to go out to eat, the movies or any other enjoyable events. In fact, though they may love you, do not expect them to greet you happily, which is not permitted on this day. They will be quite reserved, solemn and sad on this day.

The rabbis have identified this day with the fast of the fifth month (Av) as noted in Zechariah 7:5. This fast of the fifth month probably developed as a response to the Babylonian exile.

Zechariah goes on to say, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, … the fast of the fifth … will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah…” (Zechariah 8:19). These “fasts becoming feasts” are traditionally understood as occurring in the messianic age, and then our sorrows will be turned to joy. In Messiah Yeshua we have certainly experienced the truth of the Lord’s grace transforming our sadness to gladness.

For those of us that have received Messiah’s forgiveness and fullness and can “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4), we are still responsible to care about those who are hurting and have compassion and even empathy in their distress.

Should Messianic believers observe Tisha B’Av today? To a large degree this depends on one's community. If one's witness to our people identifies with those who mourn, the Bible states that we should “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). If your congregation is located in a particularly observant Jewish community, it is most appropriate to respectfully have a day of prayer for Israel and the Jewish people, or at very least not plan a celebration on that day.

In all things let us love as we have been loved and “comfort others with the very comfort we have received,” that in all events and on all days Messiah Yeshua may be glorified and His grace proven to be sufficient for all:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

Messianic Passover midrash

2011-04-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

The events of and surrounding that first “Easter weekend” (Yeshua’s death, burial and resurrection) are closely tied to the Biblical holiday of Passover. (the word used for “Easter” in many Christian traditions still is “Pascha” or Passover). This closeness should highlight the twistedness of the hatred and persecution historically shown by Easter celebrants towards Jewish Passover celebrants. Moreover, when we see the legacy of Messiah Yeshua interacting (more positively) with Passover traditions, the main thing about this interaction which should be difficult to understand is why it is so difficult to understand. Funny then, to read these statements from a recent WSJ survey of the "multi-cultural significance" of Passover:

Some churches lead seders so congregants can better understand Judaism and the Jewish roots of Christianity. But others present the seder through a Christian lens—equating the seder's four cups of wine with the blood of Jesus, for example, and the unleavened bread (matzoh) with his body. They thus turn a Jewish religious ritual into a Christian one.

It is understandable that to equate Passover matzoh with the body of Yeshua, and the wine with his blood, may be scandalizing. One might think, “how dare they take Jewish customs for that purpose?” The writer above even goes so far as to contrast a seder like this which "turns a Jewish religious ritual into a Christian one" with other "multi-cultural" seders whose observance still "remains grounded in Jewish religious ritual, tradition and meaning." Let's not overlook that, far from being a creative transforming move on the part of Christians today, it is really the teaching of the New Testament writers, who were Jews working within Jewish categories. We are just mundanely re-discovering what they were saying. So, naturally, these parallels just happen themselves to be "grounded in Jewish ritual, tradition and meaning," and the author makes a false dichotomy. Whether those Jews were coherent, justified, or inspired in how they used those categories (I think they were all three) is a debate for apologetics. Regardless, it should be no surprise if Christians want to see things as they were intended. Its sad that some might even leave out such a basic reality for the sake of political correctness.

However, much of the seder has evolved over the centuries, both before and after the "parting of the ways" of Church and Synagogue (however one dates that). Believers in Yeshua coming back to the traditional seder after that split face a large time gap. Thus, the interaction between seder traditions from different time periods, and what it all means, can be confusing.

Well, confusing is one thing. Deceiving is quite another. And those who conduct Messianic seders are accused wholesale of deceptive transformations. I would like to consider what is allegedly one of the most egregious: taking the three pieces of matza to refer to the Trinity.

A little explanation is in order. On the seder table is a stack of three matzot; during “Yachatz” (breaking) the middle matzah of the three is taken out and broken in half. The smaller piece is returned to its place between the other two matzot. The larger piece is hidden, to be used later as the afikoman, the “dessert” to be found by children after the meal, and eaten along with the third cup.

Here’s what a follower of Jesus (Jewish or Gentile) might say. The Triune God of Israel has come to Israel in the Person of Yeshua to redeem them through the Jewish Messiah. This person came to earth (even as the middle piece of three is taken out of the bag), lived a human life, was broken on our behalf (even as the matzah is broken), and was buried (afikoman put into a cloth). Then on the third day (third cup), he arose from the dead, giving gifts to the sons of men (just as the children find the afikomen). Often the Greek root of the word “Afikoman” is pointed out (“coming”).

Because this story references the Trinity, taken to be the most non-Jewish of non-Jewish ideas, this application is seen as the worst of the worst, or “pure propaganda,” a complete and blasphemous distortion of traditional Jewish practice. Anti-missionaries who argue against its use try to show that it could never have originated with the followers of Jesus. They point to the evolution of the use of three pieces of matzoh, and how the afikomen was originally “poor man’s bread,” a tradition which obviously pre-dates Jesus and so could not have originated with him. Surely believers in Jesus should be made aware of the fact that the traditions involved, from the afikomen itself to the three-tiered matzah situation do not constitute eternal or “Biblical” Jewish tradition, but arose over time. It is improbable that either Yeshua or Paul, though they surely kept the feast, ever owned an embroidered silk Matzatash. The three matzot was probably much later than the time of the early believers.

So, why would one be so bold as to refer these things to Jesus and the Triune God? Here's where we need to be clear about the radical nature of this position: His followers believe that everything has meaning in Him. Either Yeshua is or He isn’t the Anointed One. Either He is or He isn’t the substance which gives value to and informs the ancient texts, customs and even later traditions. If He isn’t, then nothing His followers do is ultimately “valid,” and the faith is objectively meaningless. But if He is, then this custom too can be used to refer to what has happened when heaven met earth. It may annoy or scandalize some even as it pleases others, but annoyance doesn’t invalidate the act or make it deceptive in any sense, anymore than pleasantness would make it true.

I've found that there isn’t one rigid way to talk about how the customs are significant. Every signification involves midrash. Moreover, ultimate explanation according to tradition is utilitarian: these things are done to keep the children awake and interested (see the last chapter of Pesachim in the B. Talmud, as critic Rabbi Moshe Shulman notes). The point is to tell the children the story in an interesting way. At the very least then, is it not within the rights of Messianic believers to keep their children awake, interested, and asking questions by sharing through the traditions what Messiah has done according to the Scriptures? I think it is more than within their rights; its a duty. Thus, the misunderstanding of Messianic application as "propaganda" is itself an application of “unequal weights and measures.” To call it a “big lie” should be ridiculous.

Turning back then to Rabbi Shulman's argument he presupposesthat the whole Messianic application is based on the idea that three pieces are the Trinity. So, if the three pieces are not originally the Trinity, then the whole deck of cards collapses. He proceeds to refute this basis as "bogus," showing that since there was not even use of three pieces anywhere near the time of the early Christians, it cannot be taken to refer to their beliefs in a Holy Trinity.

While I don't dispute his historical data on the evolution of the stack, his arguments, though logical sounding, are completely confused. It is completely arbitrary to say that the “three pieces equaling three Persons” needs to be taken as the basis for the theological application. Actually, there need not be a grand symbolic scheme at origin here. I would have other problems with it if it did, because the ontology of the G-d of Israel, according to all major Christian, Messianic, or Jewish confessions, is not three pieces of anything, but rather is a simple unity without parts! In fact, could it be that the same confusion which leads sincere anti-missionaries to think of the Trinity as belief in "three parts" of G-d leads them to think that the three-piece symbolism here is meant by Christians comport to some fundamental doctrine (as opposed to being a wonderful detail within a midrashic allegory, which it is)?

At any rate, as is clear to those familiar with the Messianic approach to Passover, the theological basis of the parallel, the basis for signification, is God’s act of redemption, not the plurality of His nature. At the risk of sounding flip, the Trinitarian parallel is just icing on the cake.

I am still learning how the Afikomen, which preceeded the grouping of three matzos, is a storied custom, but clearly it refers to the eating of Lechem Oni (bread of affliction, poor man’s bread). So if this tradition can be utilized to refer to Yeshua, then believers are justified in taking the application further into the tradition. That doesn't have to be an originating factor of, say, the Afikomen itself, but it would be helpful if we could locate such a connection made by those Jewish Yeshua-following Passover feasters. Yet we already have the reports that it is Yeshua Himself who takes this bread eaten after the meal to refer to His body ("this is my body..."). So of course it can be utilized this way: it already is! For Christians this is known as the “Lord’s Supper” or “Communion.” The testimony of the Gospel writers generally is that Yeshua instituted this custom at a point in an ancient seder meal with His disciples, where He commanded them to “do this in remembrance of Me.” That’s the very tradition which itself became a primary basis for Christian worship (and, tragically and due to later anti-Jewish theology, was ripped out of its Passover context).

But Yeshua’s disciples are commanded to understand Him in the afikomen, then what does one do with the rest of the traditions? For example, what does a believer in Yeshua who has Jewish heritage do? Should he do yachatz but not tzafun (or tzafun but not yachatz) so that the whole symbolic narrative doesn’t seem “too Messianic” or “like communion”? Should he do neither and avoid Passover completely? Should he try not to see the Messianic parallels, lest a chorus of critics rise up to call it propaganda? Should he forget the Biblical indications that G-d’s infinite and transcendent nature is plural and even Triune? Should he close his eyes to the intriguing extension of similarities? Or maybe where he does see the similarities he should keep it to himself and not explain it to others as such? Anti-missionaries who want to critique the Passover practices of Jewish believers ought to reckon seriously with what alternatives they conceive.

Let’s return to the act of applying a Trinitarian midrash to the three pieces. However, often the person making the parallel “builds up” to it by noting other interesting parallels which may be given tradition (this can be seen in Word of Messiah's Messianic Passover Haggaddah, and probably those of other ministries). Some see the middle piece as Isaac among the patriarchs, or as the priesthood among Israel. These are not the only ways to describe the significance of the three pieces, but neither are presented randomly. Both Isaac and the priesthood each taken in context, point to the ultimate work of Messiah. Thus, wherein these “types” appear in contemporary midrash, a Messianic believer is justified in considering their fulfillment, Yeshua. At that point, what other significant “three” does one expect to associate with the Messiah?

I think a problematic assumption in the scandalized reaction is that believers, if they do a seder at all, are trying to present the “original seder” of Yeshua and His disciples. There are obvious ways in which a contemporary seder will not look like Yeshua’s seder, just as there are obvious ways in which Yeshua’s seder didn’t look like a seder in the time of Moses (let alone the “original seder”). Yes, believers care about history and be interested in understanding everything they can about those events in context (and much can be known). However, as followers of Messiah, we do the seder to remember God's redemptive action in histor. Its not to participate in the equivalent of a civil war reenactment, trying to get at an imagined ideal of historical authenticity. Traditions change over time, and we allow for fluidity with the way customs and significance interact. Only Hashem Himself is unchanging. And neither He nor the significance we ascribe to certain traditions should be kept in a box.

web map

2011-02-28T06:02:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: The above picture is not a real map of our web network, but rather meant to evoke the feeling of technological connection, synergy, and Jewish stars.

You may have noticed that our main website has been revamped! In addition we've expanded our web resources to include several new sites of which wordofmessiah.org will serve as a hub.

http://www.wordofmessiah.net/ - community updates, answers to objections to Yeshua, ministry reports, testimonies.

www.messianicleadership.com - special site with resources for congregation planters and leaders in Messianic congregations.

www.miriamnadler.com - women's ministries, teachings, events (like the Sisterhood retreat), and ministry updates.

www.messianicfoundations.net - a site for Sam's most recent book on the calling of God found in the Jewish Messiah for both Jews and Gentiles.

russianministry.info - our russian site, updated regularly with teachings.

Shmooze Blogger will continue to feature interesting side-bars and experimental poetry (minus, perhaps, the experimental poetry).

Of course, you can like us on Facebook as well.

(special thanks to Natalia Fomin who spearheaded this entire upgrade!)

"perhaps Gilad Shalit is the least of these brethren"

2010-10-01T06:54:00.000-07:00

You should not miss this clip of Adv. Calev Myers, speaking on behalf of an imprisoned Israeli, for the sake of justice and Messiah's name.

Asher Intrater's response to Rabbi Riskin

2010-09-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

Via Rosh Pina Project, a response letter from Asher Intrater (congregational leader at Ahavat Yeshua):

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin's recently published article ("Dialogue: The Messianic Movement," Jerusalem Post, 8-27-2010) describing his assessment of Messianic Judaism demands a thoughtful response by someone who is part of this community.

Rabbi Riskin is well-respected in both Christian and Jewish circles. He is dynamic, intelligent, spiritual, and has great leadership abilities. We respect him as well for those qualities.

Furthermore, there are many issues in which we are in total agreement.

- He promotes dialogue between Christians and Jews.

- We should emphasize common ground in interfaith dialogue.

- Cooperation between Israel and the Church is a national duty.

- Pioneers of reconciliation face a barrage of criticism.

- We are under attack from Islamic Jihad and secular materialism.

We Messianic Jews are not asking anyone in either Orthodox Judaism or Christian Zionism to agree with us. We believe our position is correct, just as they do. We ask others to examine our beliefs with the same respect that we give to theirs.

Having said that, there are certain points in which we would disagree with Rabbi Riskin's statements.
While he says that he does not believe our community has been persecuted, we know otherwise. Our community is not persecuted by the State of Israel. However, it cannot be ignored that a fringe minority of Ultra-Orthodox Jews do execute pre-meditated attacks against us.

Please consider:

1. The Ortiz family whose son Amiel miraculously survived an attempt of murder upon his life.
2. Mrs. Conforti, whose bakery business in which she has worked from pre-dawn to post-dusk for years was deliberately destroyed.
3. The Beer Sheva Messianic congregation was ransacked by a mob (an attack recorded on film).
4. The smaller Messianic congregation in Arad has been physically attacked repeatedly.
5. Dozens of new immigrants have been denied citizenship simply because of their faith (all of whom are Jewish enough to have been slaughtered in the Holocaust, and have relatives who were).
6. Numerous Messianic Jews have been beaten, attacked, kidnapped, spit upon, cut off from families, and so on.

The list could go on, but this should be enough to make the point that one should not be "astonished" (in Rabbi Riskin's words) when asked about persecution against Messianic Jews. These attacks were perpetrated by extremist elements of the Ultra-Orthodox (who do not represent mainstream Judaism in our eyes). The ONLY reason these attacks took place was because the victims were Messianic Jews.

Rabbi Riskin compared us with the Mormon Church in America, which is not received by most of the Evangelical Christian community. The example, however, is not relevant for two reasons: First, Judaism is not solely a religion; it is also a people group. Secondly, Orthodox Judaism has religious monopoly in Israel, which Evangelicals do not have in the United States.

While many Evangelical Christians would not agree with the tenets of the Mormon faith, they would not deny their right to be Americans, nor their right to be part of the religious spectrum that exists in the United States. Mormons have full legal rights to conduct all religious and social duties, from birth to burial. Riskin has denied our God-given right to be Jews. We are denied legal rights to perform religious duties necessary within our community. Therefore, the comparison to the Mormons is not at all parallel.

We are also accused of "proselytizing" (a claim we deny by our very insistence to remain Jewish and live a Jewish lifestyle). Disseminating our beliefs is a basic right of freedom of expression, thought, religion, and the press. In fact, we do not disseminate our faith as many Ultra-Orthodox missionaries do, who approach cars in the middle of traffic, ask people to lay tefillin in shopping centers, and drive mission-mobiles around the city with loudspeakers in their "proselytizing" efforts.

Rabbi Riskin accused us of being "deceptive." Yet our beliefs are openly stated to anyone who asks. There is no hiding or pretending. It is virtually impossible to join our gatherings for more than a few moments and not understand who we are. Expressions of Jewish practice, from circumcision to Shabbat to Feasts of the Torah to Bar Mizvah to Chuppa, are an essential part of our faith. There are differing levels of expression of those customs within our communities. However, each person's religious expression is inherent to his or her faith. We have stood with integrity for those values despite criticism from both Christian and Rabbinic circles.

Finally, if our view of the Messiah is said to put us out of the realm of Judaism, then what about the Chabad movement which has invested millions of dollars in advertising campaigns to proclaim that their Rebbe is the Messiah? (Their "Meshichist" stream even believes that he was raised from the dead and answers prayers of his followers from heaven.) Are Lubavitchers not Jews? What about the Tel Aviv "Messiah?" What about those who proclaim that reciting the name of Nachman brings world redemption? What about professors of Tanakh in Israeli universities who do not believe in God? What about Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, New Kabbalah and New Age? All of those above differ from Orthodox Judaism "mainstream." Are they also “out of the realm of Judaism?”

My point here is not to try to convince anyone to believe what we believe. We simply wish to stop the "de-legitimizing" of our community. We are Jewish by birth and Jewish by choice. We pay taxes, serve in the army, believe in the God of Israel, the Torah of Israel, and the Messiah of Israel.

Sincerely,
Asher Intrater Congregational Leader – Ahavat Yeshua, Jerusalem
Love of Yeshua Messianic Congregation

Not So Fast, Luke

2010-08-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, has had other names in Judaism. It has been simply called HaYom (“the Day”) since it is considered the holiest day of the year by the Jewish community. It has also been called “the Fast” since it was a day for humbling our souls before God, and fasting was the customary expression of the humbled soul. It is this designation for Yom Kippur that one New Covenant writer, Luke, uses in reporting on the shipwreck of Paul:

“When considerable time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, since even the Fast was already over, Paul began to admonish them...” (Acts 27:9).

Luke locates the time of the season of stormy, dangerous weather by “the Fast.” Not only did he understand this name, but he naturally assumed his readers would "get it" too. Luke, a Gentile believer, identified the season by the fact Yom Kippur had taken place.

It is true that he was discipled by Paul so as to understand and express his faith in Messiah in a way that would make sense to the greater Jewish community. But this text was written for not only the Jewish community, but all believers in Yeshua, Jewish or Gentile. “The fast” would have been natural for Luke because all New Covenant believers understood and observed Yom Kippur. It never dawned on anyone that believers would be using a schedule for worship services which was designed to forget this special day. Why should something once so familiar to the Body of Messiah have become so foreign?

All sincere believers seek to exalt Yeshua in their services for His redemptive work. The festivals display God’s redemptive program for humanity fulfilled in Messiah Yeshua. The annual observance of Yom Kippur was a day not only about individuals being restored in their walk with God, but dealt with the national restoration of Israel to its divine service as a holy people. Its fulfillment is prophesied in Zechariah 12:10-13:1, when our people look unto Messiah whom we have pierced– and mourn for Him. Then the cleansing is applied and all Israel will be saved.

This time of Israel’s restoration answers our prayers for our Messiah’s return and that His “kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). So Yom Kippur was especially a reminder to all New Covenant believers of our apostolic calling to pray for Israel’s salvation (Psalm 122:6; Romans 10:1). Even as Luke’s casual phrasing shows us, it is good for all New Covenant believers to fast in prayer for our people Israel.

Tisha B'av, and whether the best you can is good enough

2010-07-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

Via Mississippi Fred, an unearthed story about the German Hebrew scholar Franz Delitzsch and his practice on Tisha B'av. His was to identify with our people out of a love for Messiah

I wanted to say one or four things in response to this thoughtful, religious video from Aish. You may first wish to watch the whole video. Charlie Harary (a lay leader in the Orthodox Union) brings us back to the first Tisha B'av, when Ten Spies presented their God-defying report about Canaan, against the courageous minority. According to tradition, sorrow befalls the Jewish people from that day. Why does God bring to our people such sorrow, Mr. Harary asks, if He is a God of Mercy?
His answer: the spies considered themselves not good enough: "we were like grasshoppers in our eyes, so we were in their eyes" (Numbers 13:33). The idea is that considering yourself small is what leads to a small, sad life, full of useless tears. And it is so true that our own perception of ourselves can sometimes cause us to stray from our divine purpose. R. Shaul said, "For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline" (2 Tim. 1:7). How often do we mistake timidity for piety?

But, leaving aside the problem of basing the Tisha b'av horrors that have befallen the Jewish people to a self-perception of weakness (horrors which have a more complex root no doubt), the Scriptures are clear about something more basic: God alone is our redemption. Yet our hearts seek to rebel against Him and not trust in Him. The issue wasn't simply that people didn't think highly enough of themselves, but that they thought more highly of their own opinion of themselves than of God's opinion. Mr. Harary states, "God says ... the 'I can't' mentality will stop you from bringing your own redemption." But what about when the reality is that we, well ... can't save ourselves? At what point do we look to the Lord? We are urged to recognize that we are good enough, to stop considering ourselves weak, and to accomplish our own redemption. Thus Mr. Harary preaches a false hope. Idealism about oneself is not the solution to pessimism about oneself. For they both center on the self.

It is a high calling indeed to represent God in the world. Through Israel, God has revealed this calling to the entire world in the Messiah. But if we assume that God is simply 'in our corner', such that we bring our own redemption, that we only need to try harder, then we are looking to the wrong place. Rather the first matter is to turn from ourselves and believe God. He said to His people they were to take the land and they didn't believe Him. But unbelief in God's promises puts much more at stake than land. Consider the following story of R. Yochanan ben Zakkai. This is a long and heavy poem but it is appropriate to reproduce it in full.

כשחלה ריב"ז
נכנסו תלמידיו לבקרו.
כיון שראה אותם התחיל לבכות.
א"ל תלמידיו:
נר ישראל, עמוד הימיני, פטיש החזק,
מפני מה אתה בוכה?
When Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was sick,
his disciples came to see how he was doing (lit., “look him over”).
As soon as he saw them, he began to weep.
His disciples said to him:
Light of Israel, Pillar on the Right [Yachin, in the Temple], Mighty Hammer,
on what account are you weeping?
אמר להם:
אלו לפני מלך בשר ודם היו מוליכין אותי
שהיום כאן ומחר בקבר,
שאם כועס אין כעסו כעס עולם
ואם אוסרני אין איסורו איסור עולם,
ואם ממיתני אין מיתתו מיתת עולם,
ואני יכול לפייסו בדברים
ולשחדו בממון –
He said to them,
If I were being taken before a king of flesh and blood,
who is here today and in the grave tomorrow,
who if he gets aggravated his aggravation is not eternal aggravation,
and if he incarcerates me his incarceration is not eternal incarceration,
and if he puts me to death his putting to death is not an eternal putting to death,
and I could assuage him with words
and bribe him with money (mammon) -
ואף על פי כן הייתי בוכה
עכשיו שמוליכין אותי לפני מלך מלכי המלכים
הקדוש ברוך הוא,
שהוא חי וקיים לעולם ולעולמי עולמים
שאם כועס עלי – כעסו כעס עולם,
ואם אוסרני – איסורו איסור עולם,
ואם ממיתני – מיתתו מיתת עולם,
ואיני יכול לפייסו בדברים
ולא לשחדו בממון,
ולא עוד אלא שיש לפני שני דרכים:
אחת של גן עדן
ואחת של גיהנם.
ואיני יודע באיזו מוליכים אותי,
ולא אבכה?
all the more reason I have to weep,
now that I am being taken before the King of kings of kings,
the Holy One, blessed be He,
who lives and abides for ever,
who if he gets aggravated with me, his aggravation is eternal aggravation,
and if he incarcerates me his incarceration is eternal incarceration,
and if he puts me to death his putting to death is an eternal putting to death,
and I cannot assuage him with words
nor bribe him with money (mammon) -
and not only so, but there are two ways before me,
one to the garden of Eden (=Paradise),
and the other to Gehenna (=Hell).
And I do not know to which I am being taken,
and shall I not weep?"

Its horrible to think about this, but R. Yochanan knew he could not accomplish his own redemption. Not even by being really really good and strong. Did he not have enough of a "can-do" attitude? His words provide a real reason for mourning.

Rather than merely depending on ourselves, we must consider the only source of redemption in the universe. The same terrible awesome king who holds our destiny in His hands took the form of a Servant to rescue Israel and all the world from its terrible fate. As we mourn the many past destructions of our people, let us look to the God of Israel Who entered our world to redeem us, the true redemption of Israel and the world.

And if it is your custom, I wish you a tzom qal.

(source: Ancient Hebrew Poetry)

The Work of the Wise, Part 4: Limitation (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

2010-07-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

Part 1 and Parts 2 and 3

"But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body."

A. The work is not to be endless: land the plane. Beyond this, beyond the practical and edifying ministry of teaching people the truth of God, there lies vanity. Writing of many books is endless: understand there's much to be done; you can write books endlessly (ayn kaitz). But do not make writing books a goal itself –this vain conceit, other than what helps us to obey God is vanity (12:13-14). Do not go further for what is useful and profitable for the people. Being a writer without truth is endless; people never get anywhere ("ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth," 2 Tim 3:7) since there is a lack of focus, fulfillment, and closure.

B. The work is not to be exhausting: study (lit) for application. Great study is a labor to the flesh: understand there's hard work in teaching (1 Tim 5:17). Devotion is good and needed; but to be excessive is enervating to the soul, not spiritually energizing. As the Lord loves a cheerful giver, so once it gets beyond cheerful, stop giving! The goal of learning is living and giving, not learning for its own sake. “How wise one feels walking out of the bookshop with a book under his arm!” Like a lawyer learning the law but not wanting to set the captives free. Thus, writing and reading that doesn’t serve and teach the truth is spiritually useless, wearing to the soul and unrewarded. Keep your eye on the ball: the goal of ministry is to help and encourage people to obey God and follow His word (12:13). Everything will be evaluated and judged (12:14) according to truth of God’s word and did it accomplish the administration of God (1 Tim 1:4).

The work of the wise disciple is to make wise disciples who work. :)

The Work of the Wise, Part 2 and 3: Presentation, Appropriation (Ecclesiastes 12:10-11)

2010-07-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

These are taken from my notes on Ecclesiastes 12:9-12. Part 1 is here.

II. The Work of Presentation, 12:10 The Kohelet sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly.

A. Applicable words are delightful ones, not only practical but creatively presented. We seek to communicate effectively to impart to others the spiritual nourishment you have fed upon (1 Tim 4:6). Taking care to find the fitting word is pleasurable and meaningful. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” took a while to write. "Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances" (Proverbs 25:11)

He sought to find: baqash, to seek as you would seek after lost sheep (Ps 119:176). To find is to discover and take hold of, to grasp to apprehend, even to conquer. This work is like finding a needle in a haystack. The right word and right illustration communicates perfectly what the many wrong words will never do.

B. Accurate words are:

1. Written to objectify the truth. Write: khatuv, to record, to mark down.

2. Words of truth, reflect the Character of God. Words of truth, div'rei emet, "let him who has My word speak My word in truth (Jer 23:28).

3. Accurate to God’s will. Yoshar, noun straightness, uprightness. Accuracy (the godly teacher), clarity (the good teacher), and creativity (the great teacher) make up a teacher of the word; but above all accuracy. He did not confuse truth with dullness (10a) but wrote "in an attractive style" (JB). Though it tempts all popular speakers and writers, we musn't trade in accuracy for creativity (2 Tim 2:15).

III. The Work of Appropriation, 12:11. The words of the wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails; they are given by one Shepherd.

This is about getting the ball across the goal line: the results of the word.

A. Intensify: They motivate to live faithfully –like a farmer’s goads: sharp sticks that farmers use to motivate the ox to pull the plow. They provoke others unto love and goods deeds (Heb 10:24). Wise teachings are to goad their readers to action.

B. Clarify: They focus to live steadfastly –like a carpenter’s well-driven nails The teaching should stabilize them to persevere in God’s word throughout life: To master (Baali) is to possess, own and have these collected wise words of God (the Scriptures) integrated in your soul, as part of your value system and thought process. Those who have mastered these collections of wisdom are like well-driven, (literally) planted, firmly established nails. You can hang a picture on, or hold a fellowship together. They are not the crooked nails which result from my hammering. But these are nailed straight and firm. They incisively, decisively speak the truth in love and refute the gainsayers. These masters are founded upon a rock (Mat 7:24-25). These should be planted by living waters and firmly established in the truth (Psalm 1:2-3).

C. Glorify: They unify to live agreeably, like a shepherd gathering a flock. The teaching should gather them to follow the One Shepherd forever. A master is a mature teacher of the word who rightly divides the word of truth. There may be many masters, but there is only One Shepherd. All masters learn the truth of His word; therefore all glorify the One Shepherd (Chagigah 3b). We are to convey His values and vision to the flock. Proverbs, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Mark, Revelation - all are from One Shepherd. If the flock is to move forward in unity, He alone can be our focus. I believe this verse conveys God's inspiration for the Wisdom writers, their equivalent to "thus saith the Lord." There is some dispute over the precise translation but none over the basic claim. The wise draw their wisdom from the Shepherd of Israel, the one true God (Gen 49:24; Psalm 23:1; 80:1).

The Work of the Wise, Part 1: Preparation (Ecclesiastes 12:9)

2010-06-29T12:02:00.001-07:00

Some think of teaching as an activity only for those of a certain class or gifting. However, even as all believers in Messiah are to be followers of Messiah, all followers are to be, in some respect, teachers (Heb 5:12). Certainly those married with children are to be teachers in the family (Deuteronomy 6:7), however, even single men and women are called to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). The Kohelet or "Preacher" of Ecclesiastes may be an exemplar, but all share this responsibility.

And what a heavy responsibility! Its a little heavier than blogging. Jacob even says “let not all of you be teachers, knowing that as such we will incur stricter judgment (Jacob 3:1)”! So then, we are called not to just any sort of teaching, but to sound teaching. I find in Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) a key passage on this point, so by request I share my notes with you (this is the basis for the OTTO Bible study classes). Though life under the sun is complete vanity, we nevertheless are called to bring the Creator’s redemption into this world, and the means Ecclesiastes presents is sound teaching. This passage gives us a methodology for doing so, in preparation (v. 9), presentation (10), appropriation (11), and finally limitation (12).

And besides that Kohelet was wise, he also taught the people knowledge; yea, he pondered, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
Ecclesiastes 12:9 (w/ Hebrew)

A. Preparation is for people -

1. Kohelet was wise The word for "wise" is chacham. Wisdom is the application of God’s word to our lives; the wise are skillfully applying His truth as they live. Biblical wisdom was to live the word of God.

So we first must be wise ourselves. This is the beginning not the goal of growth. Having wisdom must precede good teaching, just as having money precedes benevolence. The author Solomon, in spite of personal failings, must have retained the gift of wisdom, which he had asked for and obtained for the benefit of his people (2:9; cf. 1 Kings 3:9-12; 4:29-34).

2. he also taught the people knowledge. But if we are only wise for ourselves, we are not truly wise at all. The activity of teaching is the highest work of service (1 Timothy 5:17).

Those taught are people as such, not kings, the wealthy, or celebrities. Yeshua died for people; we minister to the same. Prepare teaching, not merely for professors and scholars, but for am ha-aretz. The accomplishment is knowledge, or truth, God’s word and life (Hosea 4:6, Rom 10:3). It is possible to be a miser in accumulating knowledge instead of using it for the benefit of others, but this was not the way of this Teacher. He taught others with full regard for his responsibility as one authorized to do so.

Those taught should not be dependent on the teacher but on the Lord. Taught (limad) is from the same root as learned (lamad): it literally means “to cause to learn,” or facilitate learning. To bring about wisdom for living in others is greater than giving them the correct answers. You can give a man fish or teach him to fish.

Limad has the idea of training as well as educating. The training aspect can be seen in the derived term for “ox goad” (malmad), like in Hosea 10:11. To learn is to come to terms with the will and law of God. Knowledge, to know by experience (yadah). Thus he was giving them insight for living, not just information with no practical results.

B. Preparation is a pursuit. yea, he pondered, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.

1. Ponder and observe the text carefully, Ps. 1:2-3; Josh 1:7-8. Think deeply and consider carefully. Deliberate about the meaning of the words. Grammar matters. Context matters. “pondered,” izen, comes from "ear," or hearing. Since the ear represents hearing and obedience, it is involved in important symbolic actions. If a slave chose to serve his master permanently, his ear was pierced with an awl (Ex 21:6; Deut 15:17; cf. Ps 40:6). By this legal act, the slave was bound to obedience for his entire life. At the ordination of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, some blood from the sacrificial ram was placed on the lobes of their right ears, thumbs, and big toes (Lev 8:23-24; Ex 29:20). Your consideration of the Master’s words proves submission to the Master. We are not so submitted to the Spirit of God if we just take the words to mean whatever feels right in the moment!

2. Search out to find the insights and theme, 2 Tim 2:15. He delved deeply for insight on the text. Questions were his flashlight that looked into the depths of the truth. Searched out, chiker, search, investigate, examine. It can refer to initial phases of a search or the end result, but always connotes a diligent probing. The work is neither easy or breezy. It used concerning investigating legal cases (Pro 18:17) and the plight of the needy (Job 29:16), searching out a particular subject (Job 5:27; Job 8:8; Job 28:27).

3. He set in order (NKJV). The Hebrew tiken means to “make straight.” He arranged or outlined. One does not set limits on the truth of the text itself; there is always to be more than can be observed, let alone outlined. Rather through outlining what we’ve learned will be accessible, both for ourselves, and others. Organization is like making a map of what new territory of truth we’ve discovered so that we might find his way back again, and bringing others with us. One cannot teach everything. The insights have to be prioritized according to what the text as a whole is saying.

Proverbs (meshalim) are wise instructions that represented truth in an applicable form. Thus the Hebrew for proverb mashal is from the root to represent, be like or to compare. We study the word so that the truth might be proverbial in people’s lives.

Fullness of the Gentiles

2010-05-26T13:40:00.000-07:00

Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved... (Romans 11:25-26a)

Many have asked: What does "the fullness of the Gentiles" mean in Rom 11:25? There are several views:

1) The Covenantal view: The church has replaced the Jewish people as Israel and so the fullness of the Gentiles is the same as “all Israel shall be saved.” The chapter contradicts this view, for Paul’s distinguishes between Israel which are the unbelieving and broken off natural branches and the believing remnant and the wild believing branches, which are the Gentile believers. Paul’s hope is that the partial hardening to the broken off natural branches will be removed following the fullness of the Gentiles. So the national revival of Israel is an event that occurs subsequent to the fullness of the Gentiles and is not equated to it. That this view is held echoes Paul’s deep concern regarding the arrogance of the Gentiles branches (11:18).

2) The Dispensational view: when the last Gentile is saved, the rapture takes place. This final number of saved Gentiles is their fullness, marking when God will work among national Israel. This view assumes a Gentile Body of Messiah, and sadly like the above still demonstrates the residual effects of Paul’s concern (11:18). It fails to reflect the text in that the Jewish "remnant" is by God's gracious choice "at the present time." The Body of Messiah and the Olive Tree is made up of Jews and Gentiles together –and if indeed, as dispensationalism holds, the rapture does take place prior to the Tribulation, then who knows: the last person saved might be Jewish!

3) Mills-Barnhouse view: The fullness of the Gentiles equates to “the times of the Gentiles fulfilled” of Luke 21:24. This view is possible but but still does not fit with Paul’s teaching to the Gentiles in the chapter. In Luke the fullness relates to their judgment; here it relates to their obedience. He had been exhorting the Gentile believers to make Israel jealous (11:11-13), but this would make their ministry to Israel futile until their time was over!

4) The Gentile believers’ service or ministry is fulfilled. Gentile believers would follow Paul’s exhortation and be merciful to Israel, and sharing Messiah in a way that actually speaks to Jews, so that our people would be desirous of this faith and want Yeshua and re-grafting into their own olive tree. This is my view for several reasons.

--the use of fullness in the section. Though some translations (like the NIV) translate the phrase, “The full number of the Gentiles”, this is not correct. Translating the word pleroma as “full number” is contrary to it’s usage elsewhere through the Greek Bible, where it is consistently translated fullness (or fulfillment). And that if a numerical issue was intended by Paul there are other words used in the Greek New Covenant that would have been clearer (i.e., arithmos, Rev 7:4, etc). Though pleroma in LXX is used for melo in Hebrew (Ps 24:1; 50:12; 89:11; Ecc 4:6; Jer 8:16; 47:2). So in Romans 13:10 "the fulfillment of the law"; Gal 4:4 "the fullness of the time"; Eph 1:23 which is His body, the fullness (pleroma) of Him who fills (pleroo) all in all. Eph 3:19 "that you may be filled up (pleroo) to all the fullness (pleroma) of God." Col 1:19 "all the fullness to dwell in Him" Col 2:9 "in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form."

The word "fullness" is used twice in the same section of Paul’s teaching. The word (pleroma) is exactly the same as in both 11:12 and 11:25. These verses speak of Israel’s “fullness” (11:12), and the Gentiles’ “fullness” (11:25).

--order of respective “fullness"es, Paul says in 11:12 that if Israel’s trespass in the national rejection of Messiah meant riches for the nations, that Israel’s fullness when they nationally accept Messiah will mean even more to the nations –“life from the dead” (11:15)! So since it is better for the Gentiles once Israel is in their "fullness" (see 11:12, 15), thus "the fullness of the Gentiles" can’t mean all that there is for the Gentiles, since the best is yet to come following Israel's fullness or national restoration. So Israel’s fullness is therefore subsequent to the Gentiles’ fullness in the text.

--meaning, the "fullness" for both Israel and the Gentiles may have the same meaning since they are used the same in the section. As to Israel, "their fullness" is directly contrasted (in 11:12) to "their transgression" and "their failure" (of our national rejection of Messiah, 11:15). Furthermore, in 11:30, their transgression is also called "their disobedience" which is a moral failure for not accepting Messiah as a nation. So the opposite of their transgression and their failure (and their disobedience) is "their fullness" in 11:12.

The Gentiles' "fullness" is also the opposite of their transgression, failure and disobedience. What failure? Their failure is their not making Israel jealous by being "arrogant to the branches" (11:17-18). Therefore their "fullness" as with Israel is when they both obey and fulfill their respective callings: Gentile believers mercifully expressing their faith to communicate effectively to Jewish people so they’ll be desirous of Yeshua, and national Israel joining the remnant in accepting Yeshua and, thus all Israel will be saved, all to the glory of God. Israel will then under Messiah’s authority be the sheep of His hand, and likewise Gentile believers in Messiah’s kingdom will the sheep nations, and not goat nations (Mt 25:31-36).

Yom HaShoah and Active Love

2010-04-12T08:41:00.000-07:00

"How are the Jews to believe in Jesus? Have not we ourselves blindfolded them? They cannot see Jesus because of our conduct. They cannot believe in Him, because in our lives we have not presented to them the image of Jesus; rather we have shown them the image of mercilessness. "Your deeds in Germany talk so loud that I cannot hear your words," a Jew of our times comments. Our words about Jesus must cut Jews to the heart, considering the cruelties we have perpetrated against them in the name of this Jesus from the time of the Crusades up to the present day. And not only that. How many acts of love have we neglected to do? Thus we share in the horrible guilt of our people in murdering six million Jews. This guilt still hovers over us like a cloud. . . .

"We all have to admit that if we, the entire Christian community, had stood up as one man and if, after the burning of the synagogues [on Krystallnacht], we had gone out on the streets and voiced our disapproval, rung the church bells, and somehow boycotted the actions of the S.S., the Devil's vassals would probably not have been at such liberty to pursue their evil schemes. But we lacked the ardor of love--love that is never passive, love that cannot bear it when its fellowmen are in misery, particularly when they are subjected to such appalling treatment and tortured to death. Indeed, if we had loved God, we would not have endured seeing those houses of God set ablaze; and holy, divine wrath would have filled our souls. . . ." (Basilea Schlink, 1958, taken from Michael Brown, AJOJ Vol. 1, 2.10, 189)

Debate: does the Bible provide an adequate answer to the problem of suffering?

2010-04-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

In light of Yom HaShoah this coming Sunday and considering responses to and speculation about suffering, I'd like to let you know about this debate, April 15th, between Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Bart Ehrman (for those of us not in Ohio, it will stream from the site).

Partly why I look forward to this is that I have no idea how the exchange will play out. I've read Dr. Ehrman's book on suffering called God's Problem, but though I've been challenged by his talks on almost everything else (him being my undergraduate NT professor), have not heard him talk about this. Likewise, though an admirer of Dr. Brown's Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus series and debating and preaching (e.g. on Jeremiah and the pain of God at Hope of Israel Congregation), I've not gotten to hear his views on this core issue of apologetics (though on point re: Yom HaShoah, see AJOJ Vol. 1, 2.10 p. 177ff.).

Virtually yours at the debate.

We the New Pornographers, in which I attempt to answer a question about porn and "sex work"

2010-04-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

A feminist acquaintance who understands how little I know about feminism, of any degree of radicalization and of any wave, asks:

Hey Matt, what is the take on Pornography and Sex work, from a religious perspective? I'm looking at these issues for my Feminist Methods class, so if you give me your perspective with your reasons for it, it would help. Thanks! Hope all is well.

Yes, I believe pornography is degrading and disrespectful to a person's humanity. It treats a person as instrumental to some goal of pleasure sought, no longer treating them as ends in themselves (that might sound philosophical in a classical way, and not religious qua religious, but maybe, its that too). Yes, sex work is then also degrading. Without wanting to simply jump into the middle or end of a conversation, yes, a religious position like mine might suggest that porn and sex work are deeply anti-feminist or anti-woman as such. So, yes, to the degree one truly values femininity and the rights of women, to that degree he will oppose pornography and sex work (and live that out, not just use the right rhetoric as do most religious people).

One conservative Catholic writer made the case that pornography is on the continuum towards adultery or cheating (noting the biblical view which, offering its own radicalism, says it is adultery from the heart). The main problem from a religious perspective is that, like all sin which we commit (whether as pornographers, which is most or many of us, or as people failing to fight human trafficking to the heroic degree required of us, which is most or many of us), it breaks relationship with God. God does not tolerate when the gifts he gave us for good living are placed on a pedestal above the worship of Him. Porn and sex work do that because its been revealed that goes against God's will for us.

God's intolerance here is not due to selfishness, but rather the opposite. Ethical and healthy sexuality, a religious person would say, are things which God has given to us, not precisely for mundane nuts-and-bolts insert-and-reinsert use, but for a more interesting, less pornographic use (many other adjectives besides "more interesting" apply here: private, cherish-able, personal, loving, monogamous, non-commodifiable, covenanted, within marriage, etc.). And this idea that sex is a good thing which can be easily sullied by inappropriate use is one to which most religious people hold.

These religious folk would, many of them at least, also admit to being or having been pornographers (mostly on the level of consumers) at some point in their sexual careers.

If for many the response then is not colossal shame at their own admitted failure to live out their own ethics so to speak, the reason to consider is that they believe they have been 'bought with the blood of Jesus', redeemed from and forgiven for all sin, past, present and future by the one God Who became flesh. So at some point, they have gave up trying to plead (before God, so maybe also before men and women) their own merit, but rather plead that Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that has saved many a pornographing wretch, and will always gladly welcome another. And if they don't want to commit pornea (the Greek stands for "sexual immorality" in a general sense) in the future, its not because they believe future sin will condemn them, but because they want to continue to abide in an intimate fellowship with the one God, a fellowship which is humanity's true and good end. So when such people mess up, they ask God to forgive them again.

Thus, meta-ethically, I see it not about following a set of merely rational (Kantian?) rules which include prohibitions against porn and sex work, but about the relational failure induced by (and inducing!) those acts. Putting it in a crude analogy to what I hope is ethics of care: God is deeply close to us in our own spheres of relational intimacy and dependence - closer even than any family or human lovers ever could be- and so on our behalf, he will fight being shut out by our rebellious behavior. Only for those unwilling is a loving victory not possible. If the goal of existing as humans is to relate to God so that we might represent divinity in the universe, then engaging in promiscuous and pornographic acts is wrong in that it leads us away from that goal even as and co-extensive with it leading us away from fellowship with one other. That's true of many things, but sexual promiscuity more so because of its deeply personal element (i.e. the body, those temporal-material realities which human persons are).

(of course, the idea opposed here would be the meme, which I don't mean to smear unfairly, that promiscuity is on some level a healthy part of "unrepressed" or "free" fellowship - but there you go)

One last bit is of course that not all sex work is voluntary. And perhaps all sides can agree on the wrongness of human trafficking and sex slavery and the rape in which this consists. However, I don't know if we can draw a hard and fast distinction between involuntary and voluntary sex work, since a) many who enter into it involuntarily remain long after it may argued that they have a "way out", and b) on an anecdotal level those who do get into certain aspects of sex work voluntarly may lose a great deal of voluntariness when confronted with more hard-core aspects. But that's a different set of debates. ;)

the theistic implications of vastness

2010-04-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

Last night my housemates were watching a special on NOVA called Hunting the Edge of Space. Now, it is known that the producers of the PBS series are allergic to theistic reflection - even in this episode, which wasn't about bashing design inference, they had to casually misrepresent the Galileo affair in the normal "science vs. faith deathmatch" fashion so as to show us that science had moved on from the shackles of clerics via better telescope technology. It might be nice to play along with the charade; but see, I can't. Its not that I just was educated out of a myth about the medieval-to-early-modern relationship between science and religion. Its something more primal: neither I nor my housemates could escape our sense of profound awe at the numinous unfurling of the universe lovingly rendered through NOVA's photographic exploration. And on a primal gut level, our sense of awe defeats blank scientism. On a more reflective level, the notion that that same sense has no theistic implications is simply question-begging, in that it assumes the non-reality of that which is naturally and perhaps even pre-theoretically inferred from sense: the Divine, Being of beings.

Anyway, that impolite and impolitic runway was not meant to overshadow this one particularly affecting idea, which I'll try to express. Spaces which we thought were vast - indeed because they are! - have been discovered to be comparably not so vast at all. We may have forgotten to be shocked at our huge Milky Way. But in light of the universe - the marvel of galaxies and the array of beings which are now yet being discovered - it is quite, quite, quite small. Quite. Yes, I know my words are failing and my science-writing may lack a certain je ne sais quoi, but who knows if using the big, big, big numbers would help convey this either.

I suggest that Pale-Blue-Dot Saganism is precisely the wrong inference. Rather the handiwork of the universe as it truly is proclaims something about the God Who Is. Though the universe is inconceivably vast, for God, it nicely fits the category "that which has been made." If the universe is more than pretty, how much more than pretty is He.

respecting the eighth day of a Diaspora Passover

2010-04-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

Someone raised a discrepancy today: Unleavened bread is commanded to be eaten in the Laws of Moses for seven days (Exodus 12:14-16). Yet contemporary observance in the Diaspora goes for eight (thus ending tonight and not last night as in Israel). The conversation which followed was enriching for me at least, so thus I am producing some of my findings.

So how did this tradition come about? I had ideas but was not sure, so I googled to get concise truth.
From one traditional Q & A site:

Jewish holidays are established based on the lunar cycles. During Temple times, witnesses would come to the Temple in Jerusalem and testify that they had seen the new moon the previous night. After careful interrogation and corroboration, the new month would be declared. Messengers would then be sent to the environs informing the general populace when the month began. These messengers traveled as far as 11 days journey. Jews living outside the eleven day radius would keep an extra day due to the doubt as to which day was actually holiday.

Another Rabbi notes the general time frame:

In the 5th century BCE, when Jewish unity was threatened by the exile from Israel, the patriarch Hillel II set a perpetual calendar and instituted an official 'Second Day Yom Tov'.

Okay, but if we can figure it out now, why was the 8th day permanent thereafter?

In order to make a distinction, to add to the Jewish awareness that one is living in the Diaspora and does not claim permanent residence in the Holy Land. And thus the 8th day of Passover.

Naturally for some it may be a matter of asserting biblical accuracy to say that, unlike those who follow tradition, they keep seven days of unleavened bread. But I wonder, is going out of one's way to distinguish oneself on this matter the right posture?

I don't imagine that from a New Covenant perspective there would be something wrong per se with stopping at seven. There is a presuppositional reason I have for this: that the New Covenant gives wide liberty for the way one lives out his faith in Messiah as regards to times and observances, and Messianic believers are under the authority of the New Covenant in understanding and living out Torah. (we are not under the Mosaic Covenant per se, though we are instructed by it and all Scripture as now seen through the New Covenant text). I understand that some may want to challenge this point about liberty, or at least the way I state it, but in any case its hard to imagine that disagreement implying a general halakha which requires eight day observance.

However, for even stronger reason, I wish that remarks against "keeping eight days" as "biblically inaccurate" be something that no followers of Yeshua have in their repertoire. On the surface it sounds righteous, but on the inside it ain't. For one thing, Yeshua's Passover with his disciples not only respected, but made inspired use of Jewish tradition, something seen for example in his use of the four cups (which I mused on here). That was an element not found in Mosaic text, but later commanded in the Mishnah (and certainly practiced before Yeshua's day). So by analogy I find no good reason to distinguish myself from Jewish tradition on this matter, which Messiah makes clear only needs to happen if the tradition "nullifies the word of God" (which I don't find to be the case here). For another thing, a tradition may have a story (as in this case) which precludes it from being considered inaccurate, so it is premature to distinguish seven day observance on a basis of straightforward accuracy.

On the facticity of firstfruits;

2010-04-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell's dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.
- the late John Updike, "Seven Stanzas at Easter"

Newly Kosher for the White House

2010-03-28T19:02:00.000-07:00

Last year's White House Passover seder, a new tradition instituted by President Obama, apparently did not come without problems:

Then came what is now remembered as the Macaroon Security Standoff. At 6:30, with the Seder about to start, Neil Cohen, the husband of Michelle Obama’s friend and adviser Susan Sher, was stuck at the gate bearing flourless cookies he had brought from Chicago. They were kosher for Passover, but not kosher with the Secret Service, which does not allow food into the building.

May your Passovers be joyous, and without major security problems.

holiness as true freedom

2010-03-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

At a rollicking debate Wednesday night on the existence of God between William Lane Craig and Michael Tooley (short story: Craig won, and the God of Israel exists), Dr. Craig illustrated a key premise of his moral argument by noting that without a moral law giver, and hence without objective moral facts, something like "murdering babies for fun," instead of being objectively wrong, would be "unfashionable ... like Lady Gaga" (!). This brought welcome laughs, but I think Dr. Craig was being clever in a purpose beyond levity. Now it is not my interest to comment on his argument, but rather the spiritual significance of Lady Gaga.

It appears to me that the Lady's music represents a sort of inversion of what it means to be free. Her artistic addition to the world serves as yet more propaganda for a counterfeit version of freedom. I wondered what evidence I should produce to demonstrate she actually is calling for liberation - should I quote her lyrical tropes, her interviews, plugs to the homosexual community, or what? - when all I needed to do was check her much-followed (3,290,518 and counting) twitter feed. Here a few exhortative tweets:

"rejoice + free yourself"

"Glasgow was so amazing, serious liberation tonight. I think it set ME free."

"What a f------ night. Sweating, pumping, dancing, mental human beings my fans are. Paws for miles and liquor. Freedom! Ill never leave u" (edited)

They can take our lives, but they can never take our freedom. etc.

What is this freedom her fans are called to seek after? Judging by the above and by the impressions of her not-always-avoidable oeuvre, "freedom" seems not to have gotten any more sophisticated than the "freedom" of the 60s (I admit that's heresay for some of us). I don't mean the foundational notion which led to e.g. civil rights, but that which was and is expressed by sexual promiscuity, intoxication, and insanity. That last term "insanity" (see: "mental") is salient. Generally the opinions expressed by many of my peers (yes, among those who just LOVE her, but also among those who are not so keen) is that she "is insane." I am not sure that is just an exaggeration, but perhaps in some sense constitutes a slang-ideal. Not insane meaning "not sane," but insane meaning "truly liberated from the constraints of sensibility."

This freedom equates to slavery. We see it portrayed physically (e.g. in a prison), sexually (like Spears and Madonna, she both dominates and is enslaved), intellectually (as even her name suggests, she expresses blankness and silliness in every song, and if there is one thought extending through her music, it is that extended thoughts themselves and the speech which express them in her world - on the dance floor - are akin to blasphemy). Ultimately then, this slavery is also spiritual. It seems to be that the Scriptures ironically turn Gaga-esque freedom on its head, offering an understanding which first appears as slavery. My dad points points out :

I would have never imagined that Passover might find its fulfillment in the spiritual freedom though Israel’s Messiah, Yeshua.

But with misinformation like the above coming from powerful people, we have to work blasphemously hard to conceive of "spiritual freedom." Perhaps this looks at least something like the classical ideal of happiness: not characterized by toxicity, but by virtue, not by stupification or insanity, but by focus, and so on. But it is distinguished further in that its goal is holiness - being set apart. Not only set apart from norms, but set apart to HaShem. Thus, Israel was freed so as to serve - i.e. be enslaved to - God. But of course this slavery was not slavery at all, but sonship. And of course there is much more to be explored here. Publish post.

UPDATE (4/29/10): What does the Lady's recent talk of "celibacy", besides an insatiable need to promote, mean for the above? While it might seem to contradict or represent a change of mind, it actually is a case in point (cleverly disguised and promotional). True celibacy for unmarrieds is really about radical fidelity to Messiah. Whereas Gaga promotes it under the rubric of "do whatever you want; be yourself" - that is, self-fidelity. The upshot of that motivation is that there is nothing about abstinence itself that could be valued. Its inevitably, well... flaky. As Laura Leonard notes at Her.meneutics:

Her message, as the article points out, is more about choice than abstinence itself. “Something I do want to celebrate with my fans is that it’s okay to be whomever it is that you want to be. You don’t have to have sex to feel good about yourself, and if you’re not ready, don’t do it.” She adds, “And if you are ready, there are free condoms given away at my concerts when you’re leaving!” And this, in the context of an interview to promote a MAC lipstick that supports global HIV/AIDS projects — a lipstick Lady Gaga hopes will make women “feel strong enough that they can remember to protect themselves . . . [so] that when your man is lying naked in bed, you go into the bathroom, you put your lipstick on, and you bring a condom out with you.”

Not exactly the champion of abstinence many seem ready to make her.

She makes the point that if celebrity proclamations of abstinence like this are allowed to carry the day, it undermines radical discipleship and self-sacrifice.

The furtive patakh and how to transliterate ישוע

2010-03-19T10:39:00.000-07:00

I inserted this into the middle of an unnecessarily-mega post on Messiah's Hebrew name. But I really wanted to stop doing that after say 24-hours of making a post. So here it is.
(again, this is quoting Mr. Yosef, with a claim he believes he has invalidated:)

... (Yeshu'a) was a popular name at the time ...

(and this is me): putting the apostrophe in Yeshua where he does is technically inaccurate. The final vowel is a furtive patach (patach genuva). Unlike most cases of this vowel, a furtive patach "steals ahead" of the letter its under (maybe that's a way to remember the hebrew name at least - "stealing patach" ;). And the ' represents the "ayin," the guttural stop which ends the name. The general rule is this: whenever the patach is under a final guttural which comes after an unchangably long vowel which is not a-class (as is the case here with the shurek, the "u" vowel in Yeshua), the patach is furtive. For a more clear example, consider the word mashiach or "anointed one," as in Yeshua HaMashiach. Though the "a" sound is under the guttural chet, which would normally mean the "a" follows the "ch," here the "ch" follows. So you say mashiach not mashicha. That's the furtive patach.

Perhaps the furtive patach goes undercover in its stealing ahead because the letter ayin, as a guttural stop, is silent. So unlike the chet in Mashiach its not obvious where the ayin actually goes when the name is spoken normally. But at any rate, if one wanted to be hardcore a completist as Mr. Yosef wants in his transliterating, one would put the guttural stop (') after the "a": Yeshua'.

(I believe this may be confirmed by any textbook on Introduction to Hebrew Grammar, and also by my rad Bible software).

May you live to be 120!

2010-03-19T06:29:00.000-07:00

Via Israel21c, David Pur, who lives in Israel, is to be declared the oldest man in the world:

Born in 1895 in what was then Persia and today is Iran, Pur became an adviser to the Shah, who admired his mastery of languages, including Persian, Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and French. He later added Tagalog, while learning to care for Filipinos. He and his family came to Israel in 1948.

A commenter couldn't help but notice a strange math issue though.

Today, the man who smoked for nearly 110 years and has a glass of brandy and some nuts for breakfast seems to know instinctively what recent Israeli research has proved - that increasing vegetables and cutting out trans fats and processed foods can reverse hardening of the arteries. "I avoid meat and fried foods, and eat as many fruits and vegetables as possible," he says. (emph. mine)

He is now 115. Did he really start smoking not long after he turned five?

Что нового? New Russian site!

2010-03-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

I am surprised there were no posts for Feburary and half of March, especially since there are many things worth blogging about for that stretch of time! Among other things, if you are by any chance a Russian speaker please take a minute to check out our Russian site made through the help of Heaven as well as the gracious talents of Natalia Fomin, and to which content is added regularly. Also, if you would like to help, please do pass it along to Russian-speaking friends!

Restoration of "Yeshua" vs. accommodation to "Yeshu"

2010-03-16T00:51:00.000-07:00

The most popular Hebrew term used for Jesus is "Yeshu," a word spelled with three Hebrew letters. You find this in textbooks, newspapers, and in conversations about Jesus.

However, “Yeshu” is generally not the term used by Messianic Jewish Hebrew-speakers. The reason is simple: other than as the negation "may his name and memory be blotted out" (yemach shmo vezichro ימח שמו וזכרו = y-sh-v --> Yeshu יש''ו, often written without the abbreviation marks as ישו), the name has no clear meaning or origin.

Often, a Hebrew-speaking believer has the experience of being asked if she believes in "Yeshu" ישו, wherein she responds that no, she believes in "Yeshua" ישוע (which means "the Lord saves"). Her clarification then may be met by skeptical looks and the question: "who is this Yeshua?"

Is "Yeshua" Jesus' name in Hebrew? And how do we know?
I think "Yeshua" is His name, but I also am willing to be as skeptical about it as the evidence will allow me to be, and I do not want to hold this contention any stronger than the evidence suggests. Its not like there are points awarded for "just believing," when the object of belief is simply a convention-flouting lexicality. Brothers and sisters, that would be the height of randomness. On that matter, one writer Mr. Uri Yosef has insisted (warning: not much truth about Messiah in the given link) that those who call Jesus "Yeshua"--doing so with an allegedly religiously fervent certainty--are buying into a missionary conspiracy, or "a new tactic in their quest for Jewish souls." I note that he guides his historical lasers on one Martin/Moishe Rosen. Who doesn't? (I believe Mr. Rosen's organization was involved in a semantic conspiracy, but one which had to do with an annoying apostrophe unnecessarily and against all normal transliteration techniques inserted to replace an "e" of the name's tsere (which he apparently still gets grief for (but we forgive you Moishe (still, try saying the vowel ts'r' - that's different!)))).

I will refute Mr. Yosef's contentions where they appear relevantly wrong, but I admit its only a side dish. Whether a full rebuttal article or just a blog post, any piece of writing that makes his article its main course will leave the interested consumer intolerably emaciated. I hope to nourish at least a little bit! :)

But as best I can gather, the supposition is that the missionaries are out to make the person Jesus seem ... really Jewish, and thus more palatable and meaningful to those being evangelized by way of said fraudulent nom de plume. I suppose I have to momentarily bracket the point that {Jesus was (and is) Jewish} - which would imply it is not dishonest whatsoever, but simply accurate, to portray him as such. For example, I myself would want to portray Him as Jewish in any given respect, because He was (and is) Jewish. But whatever, I was supposed to be bracketing. So let me be moving on.

As for names, the article itself offers three Hebrew options to which the Greek transliteration of Jesus can refer - Yeshua, Yehoshua, and Hoshea. I should note that all three of these are closely related: 1) they are theophoric, i.e. names containing reference to the divine name, and 2) they are based on the verb root "saves" (yud-shin-ayin). And so what the author seems to be saying, or at least allowing, is that IESOUS should be taken to be one of these. And this is correct.

So what's the problem? The "name-game" revolves around, again, I suppose, a certainty which allegedly is felt apart from evidence by many believers over one particular option of the three, and the fundamentalist or anti-Jewish badness that motivates such imposed certainty. I don't know whose attitudes he is citing in particular, but I am sure he has someone out there in mind. So it becomes a chance to show how guilty those someones are of trusting their authorities at every turn (not sure if this means: don't trust your Rabbi unless he is one I agree with. but that would be amazing). Also its that the source is allegedly Christian authorities by way of many groups and/or Moishe Rosen. Its a narrative of lexicalities-gone-bad, gone-something-very-very-bad ... actually it gets off the rails for me and I am not sure what the contention really is.

Even with the charts, Mr. Yosef's article does not explore which one of those three names would be the best evidenced, and how certain it is. I think that is a crucial question. The problem is in part his sources: he says "the only available extant and authentic source material from that general period is the Talmud in its original language, Hebrew/Aramaic." And it is true that the Talmud (whether Bavli or Yerushalaymi, i.e. from Babylon or Jerusalem) won't reveal the secret that easy. But that doesn't leave us in anywhere near the 'position of no position' Mr. Yosef asserts (I am not sure I should call it that, as having three closely related options all targeted on the meaning at issue would itself be something. we'll call it the 'position of three options'). But first, the Talmud, which he says is the only good stuff from that general period, is actually not from "that general period," if he is referring to the general period of Jesus or the early Jesus-movement. The Talmud is from 200-600, whereas the general period we are interested in is the first century (about 5BCE - 70CE). This is not to say Talmud is irrelevant for that period, as it contains names and citations from that time and region, among many other times and regions. Yet the temporal and provincial differences really matter for this issue. Second, we actually do have better "extant and authentic material" which can tell us more clearly about name usage in that place and time. (If I am not mistaken, the Israel Antiquities Authority does things). Third, if we broaden out the evidence-base to include Talmud, which of course is something we should do, then there is even more evidence to help. I submit that through a sifting of the evidence and just slightly more careful methods than Mr. Yosef's, the option of 'Yeshua' emerges as by far the most probable name of the three, which is in accord with the mainstream of scholarly opinion. For practical puposes, that's a sufficient reason for adopting this as the representative name form in Hebrew. The notion that we had to defend a position of absolute certainty about the name "Yeshua" (bearing in mind this is a historical question, not a math problem) reeks of unequal weights and measures in the highest degree. But no matter: as hinted at and as should become clear below, Mr. Yosef's theses also turn out to be mostly irrelevant to the more important issue of which Hebrew usage is appropriate, the one which heads this post. In particular, he has nothing to say about the name "Yeshu" (the popular and traditional name of Jesus in Hebrew).

So all that to say, one day I got to thinking about this, and decided to write out reasons for and against using the names Yeshua and Yeshu. I've posted them by request. Such reasoning depends a great deal on whether either one actually is His Hebrew name, but also includes other issues (and who doesn't want more to blog about). As for what is, just to be clear about my view: Yeshu was almost certainly not His name, whereas Yeshua most likely was. Here it seemed to me like the best way to organize the material was on practical lines since, in the end, we want to consider the Hebrew name by which we will honor Him in practice. Also, I am not an expert on languages, philology, or ancient near east per se, so I am basically just researching and using my brain to sort it out. Note also that its mostly limited to Yeshua and Yeshu, not the use of Jesus which is standard today in English. This is somewhat arbitrary, but I am interested in considering what we call Him in Hebrew, not to argue for or against using "Jesus" in English (for the record, I am against calling Him "Jesus" in Hebrew, which you can do, and which would look very different, something like this: ג'סס. In principle I find that weird on many levels.)

Reasons for using the name "Yeshua"
1. The Greek IESOUS (which we know is a translation of some Hebrew name) corresponds to “Yeshua” in the later Biblical Hebrew texts (1 Chr. 24:11; 31:15 Ezra 2:2,6,36,40; 3:2,8,9; 4:3; 5:2; 8:33; 10:18; Neh. 3:19; 7:7,11,39,43; 8:7; 9:4,5; 10:9; 11:26; 12:1,7,8,10,24,26). This attests to widespread usage at that time. As Mr. Yosef says it:

§ Within the Jewish canon of the Hebrew Bible, the name (Yeshu'a) is present only in the last Books: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

Well, that's right. But this puts the common usage of that name close to the relevant time of the earthly life of our subject, which already makes it a preferable translation based on that background data. However, its

a. fair to note: IESOUS also corresponds to Yehoshua (Joshua) in Biblical Hebrew (as it does Joshua's earlier name, Hoshea). This name tends not to occur in Late Biblical Hebrew. Still, on the basis of the Greek alone, I would be good with treating “Yehoshua” as a possible variant (and I guess, to a lesser degree, Hoshea). Um... are you good with that? Or are you one of the someone's he was after? Perhaps there is information which would make this qualification moot (even may be discovered below under the heading "reasons for using Yeshu"). But it is unclear why such a qualification, assuming its a necessary one, should be treated as a scandalous admission by anyone. And this point that there are two possible variants is at best the most that could be gathered from Mr. Yosef's actual name-related argumentation. (though more on possible moot-ness below)

b. Still, the name Yeshua itself is most likely a late-Hebrew shortened form of Yehoshua. This is because Joshua (Yehoshua) son of Nun is recorded as Yeshua son of Nun in a later biblical text (Neh. 8:17) (Mr. Yosef records this in chart but doesn't note what significance it might have). So to treat Yehoshua and Yeshua as totally distinct game-changing options is quite a game in itself. They are forms of each other.

2. The Aramaic Peshitta uses the cognate of Yeshua. I say cognate, as from what I've been told it may only be cognate with respect to pronunciation, but its identical with respect to spelling: ישוע

3. Tal Ilan, on the basis of her wide-ranging survey of literature and archaeology, ranks it as the sixth most common male name in her Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Part I: Palestine 330 BCE--200 CE. Same Tal Ilan (ibid.) notes that the Yeshua form is the name of Jesus of Nazereth (citing the Tosefta Hullin 2.22 which uses Yeshua for him and not the negation or corruption “Yeshu”).

With the above points in mind, here's a pushback via Mr. Yosef I feel worth addressing, because it reinforces the issue of sources. Noting the usage in his controlling source of the Talmud, he finds extremely high usage of Yehoshua (2017x), a pair of usages of Hosea (2x), in reference to the Talmudic sages.

"These results indicate that, at least among the Talmudic Sages, the names (Y^ehoshu'a) and (Hoshe'a) were used, while the name (Yeshu'a) never appears on the record, except in direct quotes of passages from the Hebrew Bible! This invalidates the claim that (Yeshu'a) was a popular name at the time of Jesus."

[extremely minor point which also serves as a quick Hebrew time-out: putting the apostrophe where he does in Yeshua is technically inaccurate. The final vowel is a furtive patach (patach genuva), one that unlike most cases of the sound, "steals ahead" of the letter its under (that's a way to remember the hebrew name at least - "stealing patach" ;). And the ' represents the "ayin" guttural stop in the name. The general rule: whenever the patach is under a final guttural which comes after an unchangably long vowel which is not a-class (as is the case here with the shurek, the "u" vowel in Yeshua), the patach is furtive. For a more clear example, consider the word sameach or "happy," as in chag sameach. Though the "a" sound is under the guttural chet, unlike most other cases the guttural consonant "ch" follows the vowel "a." So if one wanted to be a hardcore completist, I believe one would put the guttural sound (') after the "a": Yeshua'. This info may be found in any introductory Hebrew grammar textbook.]

If right his quote would mean that Yehoshua was the more popular form of basically the same name, which we've already seen is nothing particularly sensational to expose (I am ruling out Hoshea with its 2x because we don't have any examples of the name being given with a hey, though I suppose I am not supposed to go outside the Talmud in answering the question by Mr. Yosef's lights.) But there are multiple problems here. The Late Biblical Hebrew in Nehemiah gives us Yeshua as a form of Yehoshua (son of Nun), even as texts from that time give Yeshua. Thus we know the names are forms of each other, and Yeshua was becoming a common name at that time. We also recall that the Talmud was put into writing, composed, and edited during a completely different time period than the first century. The difference between the time periods far outstrips whatever difference Mr. Yosef wants to emphasize between the names themselves. Its different, indeed, than the period of the sages who are mostly referred to (at least the ones contemporary to Messiah). We have to allow that the way someone's name is rendered in one century may be different than another, since this is the case with Yehoshua becoming Yeshua.

[As for why Yehoshua might be a more popular from to cite in Babylon, at a time much later than the 'Late Biblical Hebrew' in Israel where the form "Yeshua" became popular, which indicates a reversal of sorts... its an interesting question about which I can only speculate dangerously... One idea is that it has a lot to do with the Torah-textual character of the use of Hebrew in that diaspora community. The form Yehoshua (also Hoshea) shows up in Torah and prophets whereas Yeshua doesn't, and this Torah in particular intimately informed the language of the sages. So perhaps rendering names by the form found there would come naturally. Perhaps a better guess... Arachim 32b shows that the letter hey found in Yehoshua and not in Yeshua had theological significance, in that the hey being dropped represented the chastening hand of the divine, contrasted to the bestowal of favor to Abraham with the adding of a hey to his name. From this we could extrapolate there would be no problem calling a rejected man "Yeshu" whereas they would have a problem even calling a well-regarded sage "Yeshua" and might instead "restore" the hey. However, I don't think I can read these Talmudic-era beliefs (which while extrapolated from Torah, have their own distinct character), into a different time, place, and culture, where we would find different naming conventions. I cannot yet confirm or speak to what various beliefs on divine name alteration were at that time and place and what effect they may have had on someone's view on the relationship between Yeshua and Yehoshua. Philo, a contemporary in time if not place, comments that the change from "Hoshea" to "Joshua" for the son of Nun, noting that Moses is "displaying by his new name the distinctive qualities of his character" followed by an interpretation based on, as best I can tell, the Greek (!) in the case of Hoshea "what sort of person is this?" but the Hebrew in the case of Yehoshua "the salvation of the Lord." But so far I cannot find anything like the above, that a shortened name is dishonor, in his On the Change of Names, and he does not cite Nehemiah 8:17 in any of his extant writings. Even if I could find a view in his writings one way or the other, this would not necessarily tell us what all or even most Jews at that time believed about naming.]

4. All modern Hebrew translations of the New Covenant use Yeshua, going back to at least the 19th century. The notion that these translations "picked" Yeshua (i.e. out of the three options above) in order to perpetrate a conspiracy is simply not a serious suggestion. Beyond the fact that it is a conspiracy theory, the translations are made by heavy-hitters, scholarly speaking (Delitzsch, Ginzburg, etc.). So we would need good reasons to go against their decisions in practice.

5. The name has also been used without controversy within Jewish tradition. Kai Kjaer Hansen notes:"In his prolegomena to Thesaurus Totius Hebraitatis (Jerusalem, 1940, pp. 215-216), Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the father of Ivrit, deals with the name of Jesus. Here the name of Jesus is mentioned explicitly at least 8 times, and every time the form Yeshua is used" (note: Prof. Hansen gives plenty more citations of relevant uses of "Yeshua" in Jewish tradition for Jesus, including Maimonides in early texts of Iggeret Teman, parts of the polemical Toldoth Yeshu, and early texts and explanatory notes to Mishnah, but being where I am I have not been able to check most of them. That said, I have no good good reason to doubt him.)

6. Its root meaning explains the key text where his name is introduced (Matt. 20:21), as well as having theological significance for his character. (note: taken alone this point only favors using one of the forms from yasha to which IESOUS translates, but that is enough for considering Yeshua which does and Yeshu which does not.) If a text is made meaningless by adopting one practice, and meaningful by adopting another, all things being equal we should choose the second. And this is distinct from the issue of the text's inspiration.

Reasons against using Yeshua (with some responses):
1. It was concocted (or "revived") by modern Hebrew-Christian movements for the purposes of evangelism.
a. The idea that it was "concocted" seems to have caught on among some, but its clearly false. It is so clearly false that those who perpetrate this idea have no scholarly credibility. Just see the above. If it was only "revived," and I certainly think it was to some degree, it is unclear why this is a reason not to use it. Some people's purposes are to communicate the Jewishness of Jesus, and others may find this suspect. But for my part I do not see what is wrong with the motivation. Why shouldn't the Good News be put in terms more amenable and clarifying, including calling the Jewish Messiah by His name?
2. It is offensive to use a Hebrew name for Jesus that is not recognized by traditional Judaism.
a. While I do not want to be insensitive on this point, we have to be wary here of political correctness. If the recognized term Yeshu is wrong, misleading, or inappropriate on other grounds, it would seem unwise to adopt it merely to avoid offense. That's something I'll explore below. But also, its use in the Tosefta, as well as Ben Eliezer, not to mention Maimonides and the Toldoth Yeshu itself (the latter two I haven't gotten to check) would mean that the name is in fact recognized.

Summary: I think reasons like these are about as good as history can get in determining that His Hebrew name was Yeshua (not to say the reasons are close to exhaustive). The reasons to avoid its use anyway are quite weak.

Reasons for using the name "Yeshu"
1. It is the name we have for him from the Talmud, and is thus His traditional Jewish and Hebrew name.
a. As mentioned, it seems to be used there as a negation. So that is unhelpful if one wants to refer to Him by name.
b. Some, however, have suggested that Yeshu may have evolved from Yeshua as a shortened form of it. It has likewise been suggested that the final ayin, while appearing originally in the written form, was left off the pronunciation by 1st century Galilean speakers, and that this led to it being left off in writing in later Jewish texts. Only later was it attached to the negation formula "may his name and memory be blotted out."
i. Perhaps this is speculative, but if true (and see the above linked Prof. Kjaer-Hansen for an interesting theory about it), it also would qualify b. as yet another reason to legitimately use the earlier form, Yeshua (as opposed to the other options brought up by Mr. Yosef). Even if the final ayin was only in writing and not pronounced (with the extra syllable and guttural) by certain Galileans, and even if this led to its use as such in Jewish tradition, the written form then is what provides appropriate significance and meaning today (see point 6 above for example). It would take a very odd sort of nativist combination to attempt to use in normal practice a hypothetical pronunciation from 2000 years ago, all the while committed to the correct and well-attested written form, when the latter is pronunced in a different way today. That would confuse everyone in ways which are simply impractical. We should note that this hypothesis if confirmed would indicate that Yeshua was more likely His name as opposed to other two Hebrew options offered by Mr. Yosef, since Yeshu would be far more likely to evolve from Yeshua than Hoshea, and would require at least another step from Yehoshua. That also makes Mr. Yosef's silence on "Yeshu" problematic.

2. A negation SHOULD be used and not his real name since Jews do not believe in Him, and thus should not utter the name of a strange god.
a. I don't think we should take this point lightly. It shows that it is not mere semantics and not mere spite - unfortunately two explanations I've heard from fellow followers of Yeshua - but a genuine theological conviction which not only can motivate but perhaps did motivate the conscious use of Yeshu as negation (bearing in mind that most are not conscious at all that it is such). Hence, should not a reclamation of that name likewise should be met on theological grounds, not only semantical grounds? It is on the basis that Yeshua is in fact, the Jewish Messiah, the manifestation of the God of Israel Who is our Salvation, that I use His real Hebrew name.
b. This is not to make a non-believer be inconsistent or "trapped" if she uses the name which fits a conviction they don't hold. Yeshua is still a name which is historical and correct, and can be used on those grounds. Rather, my point is he is the Messiah! Yeshua is not a foreign god; rather, He is the God of Israel come in the flesh. Using "Yeshua" is not a last-ditch effort at disguising "Yeshu" to get those who don't follow Him to be inconsistent, but a simple restoration which, taken within this dialectic, can point to some deeper truths. The name's overall consistency with historical data is for some of us of one cloth with its consistency with biblical, Jewish truth.
3. Hebrew speaking and/or Jewish believers themselves may wish to be respectful of Jesus’ actual name, i.e. to not use it in vain, or in public context.
i. The negation “may his name be blotted out forever” (Yeshu) would not perform that respect, in my opinion - even if it was originally a "nick-name."
ii. Nor could one do this through the use of “Jesus” since this is itself an English transliteration of the Greek transliteration (IESOUS) of the Hebrew name (most probably Yeshua). I mention this, again, not to argue against using "Jesus" in English, but because one friend (who took deep offense at using the name Yeshua) thought that 'Jesus' was some sort of alternative given name, the way one might be called “Mark” in public, but “Moshe” when being called up to read the Torah or participate in other aspects of synagogue. In reality, if Yeshua had any non-Hebrew names for public use, we don’t have them.
iii. there is no evidence that we are expected NOT to refer to the Messiah by His name in order to be respectful. On the other hand, the text seems to imply calling on His name is a good thing! ;)
iv. it would reflect bad exegesis of the commandment, “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
3. In Hebrew, Yeshu is the most recognizable name today for the person Yeshua and need not be seen as negation. (in my opinion, this is probably the best argument for using Yeshu and not Yeshua.)
a. However, it may be asked, is the use based on ignorance of the negation-origin, or is it aware of the negation-origin? b. If through ignorance, the ignorance may be healed through better information like the above. And in general, this means using the name Yeshua, otherwise the matter is "in the closet." If its done with awareness of negation, then how can Yeshu be seen as an appropriate name? Here the pragmatic value of keeping the status quo seems overwhelmed by the altogether importance of truth in general and truth with respect to the person of Yeshua.

In sum: None of the arguments (i could think of) for using "Yeshu" carry the day. However, since it is recognizable and popular for reasons unrelated to the traditional practice negating His real name, believers need to be sensitive and wise in how they treat the issue. Its not a point for defensiveness, but dialogue. That said, even as the weight of evidence is heavily for "Yeshua," so also one's practice of using that name can be well-grounded, and indeed should be. Yay facts!

Reasons against using Yeshu
1. Apart from a few possible exceptions, it doesn’t exist as a root or name in 1st century in Hebrew or Aramaic. So it is highly unlikely to actually be His name.
2. It indeed functions as an acrostic meaning “may His name be blotted out forever.”

This is a work in progress. Its open to helpful additions.

Snares

2010-01-31T10:40:00.000-08:00

...the social supports ... for guidance--churches, ethnic communities, patriotic activities, and a liberal arts education--have either disappeared or now appear ‘plastic’ and unreal. Enduring this kind of acutely felt tension, these young people yearn for a quick cure for their sense of isolation and confusion (Lofland and Stark, 1965). They seek a sense of full belonging and purpose in life, independent of their familes, but without engaging in the struggle to achieve true "mutual understanding" between individuals or the serious "analysis" of their situation required to find and shape their own identity. ... Then at a moment of crisis, a "turning point"... they encounter the missionaries of one or another New Religious Movement offering just such an alternative path to (or temporary detour from) maturity. (Comprehending the Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements, 91)

A Jewish teenager arrived in Toronto, and stayed with his Messianic Jewish aunt. From the start she was particularly confrontational towards him about her belief in Yeshua, and he eventually left over religious differences (he was an atheist). Yet, amazingly, he continued to attend the Messianic congregation she had initially dragged him to, because he appreciated the friends he had made. Eventually, not just the beauty and goodness of the community, but the reasons they gave for their Yeshua-faith convinced him, and he began to profess belief as well.

Later, while looking for an apartment, he met an Orthodox Jewish couple, who happened to be preparing a Shabbat meal. The couple convinced him to stay for for the night. Near the end of the meal, his faith in Yeshua came up. Concerned about the boy's beliefs, which they considered shocking and alien, this couple had to think fast. They proceeded to lie to him by telling him that they have a friend who might be interested in learning more and considering this Yeshua. In fact, the friend they were speaking about was none other than Julius Ciss, a professional “counter-missionary,” whose interest was only to dissuade the young man from his belief in Yeshua and bring him back into the fold. Taken in by their ruse, he agreed to meet with Julius, who used the usual stock arguments and attacks. This was countered by rhetoric from believers, but he was gradually losing touch with them. Unable to refute the anti-missionary’s arguments and won over by his kindness (which included setting up the young man an apartment with a Jewish family), the teenager eventually gave up his faith in Yeshua and became an assistant to Julius.

Now, is my summary above a perfectly charitable re-telling of this story by Aish HaTorah? Perhaps not. In my reading, it all turns on an act of deception - some might say a “white lie,” or maybe even just a “stretch of the truth” - wherein the professional (counter-)missionary is misrepresented as a potentially receptive person so as to set up a meet. In the author’s words, he was "a friend of the Sheiners who, they said, was potentially interested in the 'wares' he peddled."

The context makes it clear that the Sheiners meant to shine the young man on. Just as clear was what they thought they were dealing with: a peddler of wares. In dealing with people considered to be perpetual lying salesman - you know, the “Jews for Jesus” - this act could be very easily excused.

So yes the story I told was not fully charitable, but it is a plausible interpretation of the facts given. In fact, its more probable than the story as written, which reflects a mixture of biases: the concerned ignorance of the couple towards the young man's Yeshua faith, filtered through the reactionary feelings of things once believed but no longer by the young man himself, filtered through a sort of patronizing disdain of the author. Some of these biases could be found in any number of believers in Yeshua who are still reacting against their own traditional Jewish past, still thinking in anti-Jewish tropes. The point is that the tale relies upon prejudiced language - anti-Christian tropes, to be specific, though much more toned down and cleverly put than some - as opposed to reasons for believing or disbelieving in Yeshua.

If one were to look for what reasons Aish gives elsewhere - well... here you go. In my view, these are not successful (or close to successful) in providing rational warrant for dismissing the person and claims of Yeshua. But here this story is not about reasons. The author’s real point is that the mission of “Jews for Judaism” and other antimissionary organizations is both just and vital. To try to proffer any reasons against belief in Yeshua would just be preaching to choir, and could possibly raise more questions than they answer.

A few points stand out to me:

1) Stories are not the same as reasons. Care matters, and so does intellectual engagement.

2) Coercion often seems justified at the time. God's love persuades but never coerces.

3) Though positioned as reflecting mainstream Jewish thought for a contemporary audience, Aish haTorah is closely aligned with a new religious movement: counter-missionary Judaism. This need not detract from the teaching on their site, which is often very thoughtful and substantive. But counter-missionary Judaism is an agenda driven movement. The agenda is to dissuade one from beliefs considered non-Jewish - particularly faith in Yeshua. This alignment may certainly compromise the objectivity of their presentations, particularly when dealing with Yeshua-faith. (and yes, viz-a-viz their position, the same flaw could apply to this blog, which is aligned with an agenda of glorifying Yeshua as the Jewish Messiah.)

theological speculating on Haiti

2010-01-27T10:42:00.000-08:00

Reading my daily Ross Douthat prompted me to dig up a comment I had at first opted to file away.

I don't think we can talk well about Haiti. I don't mean that, as someone suggested to me, to do so is "taboo" - i.e. we *may* talk about it if we so wish, and for better or worse we *do* - but rather just that there are some things we can't know (and thus can't talk well about). We believe that each of the dead or dying are created in God's image. There's necessarily 200,000+ purposes (200,000 things to say), all of which are done some degree of injustice if given lesser or no weight, honor, or respect. And on each purpose we'd be speculating apart from evidence. So that makes an account of Haiti's troubles in light of theology to be, not a "mystery," but humanly impossible.

This is not to imply that it is humanly impossible to consider why or how God could let natural evils happen (and here its sad that in many religious circles those questions still ARE taboo). But for precisely the above reasons, its inappropriate if we try to use the big questions as a means of commenting on Haiti's bitter present. The order needs to be reversed - any specific tragedy, can lead us to reflect about such tough questions, ones which require no personal opinions about the cosmic-spiritual-moral effects of voodoo, for example. Maybe this will strike people as too "abstract" or "philosophical." To which I submit that speculation of the dry, reflective kind is still preferable to the callous, disrespectful kind, even if neither "feel right" in light of the present need to care, act, and respond.

(Many of Ross' comments concern also the issue of authority in biblical interpretation, ideas to which I hope to return.)

For more: Via Eric Chabot, a Messianic believer who works with college students at Ohio State, here is one such article addressing the question of natural evil. I also recommend, if you can find it and handle the hardcore philosophical reflection stemming from thoughtful Tanakh-exegesis, the Veritas Lecture by Eleonore Stump on "Job and the Problem of Evil." Now, two suggestions alone is a bit too piecemeal for such a weighty topic. More is forthcoming.

David Stern and Jewish Literacy

2010-01-25T07:40:00.000-08:00

Continuing a round of honor going to Messianic Jewish pioneer David Stern (always a good idea), I found Yahnatan's quote choice (its from the book that used to be called Messianic Jewish Manifesto):

Jewish history is mine because I am Jewish. I reject the claim that I am not. Jewish history leads to me and explains who I am.

Second, Jewish history is important for me because Judaism has preserved some elements of truth...

And third, Jewish history is mine because if we Messianic Jews are to undertake our task to help heal the split between the Church and the Jews, as insiders to both, we must be fully identified with Jewish as well as Christian history.

So the Rambam is my Rambam, and David Ben-Gurion is my Ben-Gurion, and so are Moses Mendelssohn and Moshe Feinstein and Solomon Schechter and Stephen Wise and Judah HaNasi and the Raba and Abaye and Meyer Lansky and Albert Einstein and the Marxes--Karl and Groucho--and Peres and Shamir and Rav Kahane and Charlie Biton. All mine! And I, a Jew who honors the Jewish Messiah Yeshua, am theirs.

Of course, it is not that a Jewish believer must 'submit' to the 'authority' of these men; it would be a difficult thing to truly submit to both the Rambam and to the Karl (or Groucho) Marx! His point is that they are family. The invitation for all of us then is to get to better know one's family - to be familiar! This is not something that is ever finished (I must admit that however slight, I am nonetheless far more familiar with the Rambam than with Marx, and its more Guide than Mishneh Torah or Das Capital). So in practical terms, this is an encouragement to literacy - i.e. to continuing Jewish education over one's life, carried out with the care and respect of honoring one's own forebears, who as a family tree "leads to me and explains to me who I am."

Even on this level, the Hebrew and Apostolic Scriptures, cornerstones of Jewish thought, are not left out of the equation; nor does it exclude the Gentile followers of Yeshua. I mentioned this quote to my Dad and he pointed out this verse "1 Cor. 10:11 Now these things [Jewish history referred to earlier in the chapter] happened to them as an example, and they were written for our (Jewish and Gentile believers) instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages (acharit-hayamim acc. Stern) have come (i.e. in Messiah, the fulfillment of history)." Our history includes the good and the bad. Maturity comes in evaluating the difference; but in either case we are family.

Am I wrong in thinking that this quote would find wide (near-universal) agreement within MJ circles (a welcome thought!)? Are there questions stemming from other interpretations of these words that I am missing?

"spiritual piracy" and the seasonal turf war

2009-12-21T14:15:00.000-08:00

Via Jeffrey Goldberg, we have Garrison Keeler (voice of this show) being a tad unkind:

Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that's their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite "Silent Night." If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own d*** "Silent Night" and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.

"One of our guys"? Oy, how this season can reveal our inner playground tribalism so quickly. It reminds me of something that was sent my way when I said 'Happy Hanukkah' and mentioned its signifigance for believers in Messiah. The message read:

please celebrate your own holiday (xmas) and let jews celebrate their holidays in peace.
it's really tacky when xians try to co-opt other people's holidays.

But the truth is much more peculiar (perhaps even "tacky") than this sort of preening, turf-war pluralism could allow. The feast Hanukkah is quite signifigant for believers in Jesus, though this may annoy some. And, Mr. Keeler, the subject of holiday you are promoting? That would be Messiah Yeshua - and He was one of "our guys."

Its a beauty-haunted world after all

2009-12-04T21:41:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week in a fascinating piece on Slate, Ron Rosenbaum attempts to describe aspects which make this an "annoyingly mysterious world," also expressing why he takes exception to the "certainty" of both theists and atheists.

He critiques dodges of the 'new' atheism - faith in evolution as Blind Watchmaker, quantum-fluctuation cosmologies, and reductionary attitudes towards consciousness and qualia - rightly showing how they fail to provide any scientific solution, or take away the mystery (and Dawkins might still agree on that last point).

He seeks to dispatch with "intelligent design" in much less time, noting that ID "doesn't explain what created the consciousness behind the intelligence of intelligent design." Sure, ID does not resolve that, and would not attempt to (nor should we assume that is ID's "job"). But to take the bait for its own sake, Rosenbaum's argument is assuming the same problem should push back to the First Designer - but that's not a reasonable assumption in this case, because our consciousness and a Primary designer's consciousness need not be construed as univocal entities, similar in all relevant respects. In fact, if the primary "intelligent designer" is a being which is non-biological, not to mention non-spatial and non-temporal (that is, eternal), as relevant arguments entail, then, while our consciousness may still bear some analogy to the First Consciousness(es), it cannot not be construed as similar in the bio-chemical senses that ID-theorists call "irreducible complexity."

Nevertheless, back to mystery. Approaching the matter through the prompts "what is consciousness?" "why is there something rather than nothing?" and "how did life come from non-life?" he praises recent writers for

what you might call a philosophical version of a punk rock attitude on these questions, a disdain for the nobs who sit on their fat certainties. I consider them heroic for entertaining heresies that dismay the religious and the irreligious, both of whom claim too much.

Well, his own summary of the matter is not what I would call "punk rock," but rather MOR:

I don't think religion has the answers, but I don't think science does either.

So: no one has everything all figured out, and he is not religious (just Mysterious). Avoiding snark, I think its worth pondering just how milky this is. Perhaps, the poverty of interest in his conclusion derives from the assumption that we are dealing in the first place with "mysteries to be solved." Which are insoluble. But yet "we need answers."

Murder- and criminologist-style mysteries are not like the "mysteries of existence" which he invokes. One involves a situation - who killed _______? what led to Hitler's Nazism? - whose narrative can be comprehended (at least in principle) by finite beings, even if putting all the particular pieces together may be extra-ordinarily difficult. Yet, this other sort of mystery directly involves capital-B Being. It involves the Infinite (not of mathematical sort, but in the sense of not having any limitations). It's not a difference in magnitude, but a distinction in kind.

But what makes a mystery? Not the search for solution (if so we would just call them "problems"), but rather their (often terrible and relentless) beauty. Perhaps this is even what makes mysteries dangerous; it is not that we haven't solved them yet, or, in this case, that New Atheists offer the Rational Solution and are Surprisingly Unsuccessful. Rather, like ghosts not found in stories or on screens but instead real and immediate to us, mysteries really do haunt us. So to make it about problem solving at all is to miss it; what attracts me about a Chagall painting is not found in my inability to give its cosine.

According to those pesky religious theists, Beauty is ultimate one of God's names. Dogmatic certainty about matters beyond our reach is a turn-off. But far be it from any 'religious' approach to set such limits. Agnostism, ironically, is compelled to do so. With the mysteries of the Infinite (the limitless of HaShem's being which undergirds contingent reality, the spark of consciousness which is His Life imparted to us), humility is not found in working out solutions, but in seeking the Source Who makes heroism possible.

Tattoo miscellany

2009-11-30T21:35:00.000-08:00

A church is (hilariously? experimentally? emergingly?) giving tattoos in its services.

In 2007, Hillel covered the issues for Jewish life presented an mixed take on it.

But the burning question is: when will this movie finally be finished? Was it in vain that over the years I've mentioned it a handful of times in passing (even name-dropping it without shame to tattooed friends, both Jew and non-Jew alike), all the while assumming there was something finished we could perhaps ... see? This is not me being pushy. I am interested.

(Cross posted at סטודנטיםStudentim)

Meshichim on the move

2009-11-30T20:26:00.000-08:00

Over at Yinonblog, Rabbi Joshua points out that Chabad Lubavitch Messianism toward the late Reb Shneerson is no passing fad.

(The video is indeed a curious find. though from Jan-Feb 2009, this doesn't detract from its relevance. The Rebbe passed June 12 1994.)

Rabbi Joshua:

Mashiach will definitely return. However, it seems there is certain disagreement within the Jewish world as to which one it will be.

Indeed, which one it will be, and also whether it will be, why it will be, how it will be, etc. etc. etc.

Craig/Singer

2009-11-29T20:55:00.000-08:00

On the main site we address the Biblical truth of God's Unique Unity. Recently Dr. William Lane Craig, noted philosopher of time and evangelical apologist, debated Rabbi Tovia Singer on the topic of whether God is Triune. Though there is much talking past each other, Rabbi Singer's basic argument was: why would HaShem punish us for not believing what wasn't explicitly believed for thousands of years before Messiah? Dr. Craig points out that this is simply misdirection, and answers that faith requires responding to the revelation given. And we might also add, faith was always to be in the promises of God, which are realized in the Jewish Messiah.

In part-two they discuss the divinity of Messiah in the New Covenant, and Jews who believe in you-know-who come up at 5:11.

Dr. Craig is sharp as always, though one might wish he had time to explore how the Hebrew texts do in fact hint at the plurality in God.

(A completely unnecessary point: why did they name the show Faith Under Fire? Its not like they get persecuted on camera every week! ;)

News flash

2009-10-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

Please visit JIJ's news page for great links including translations of recent Hebrew language articles regarding the Ministry of Interior and Yad LeAchim's activities against believers in Messiah.

Sukkot in the Year of our Lord (John 7:1-2)

2009-10-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him. Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near. --John 7:1-2 (in the NASB translation)

After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand. (same verses, in King Jimmy's English)

Interesting that Zechariah 14 prophesies of a time when all nations will come up to Jerusalem to celebrate this holiday (over the years we've considered this here, and also here and here and here and here). So naturally many are wanting to get started with the celebration early, in anticipation of King Messiah.

The New Covenant Scriptures don't subtract from but rather add to the significance of this day; so for Christians, Chag Sukkot should be a wonderful time to celebrate Yeshua (Rev. 7:9-17). Yet for some reason, most religious people aren't even aware of it; in some traditions, in fact, even the Feast of St. Therese gets more play. ;)

What's at the root of all this? Rather than rehearsing the sad history of the removal of all things Jewish from historic Yeshua-faith, I'll hone in on a tiny detail that perpetuates it. By translating the word ioudaioan as "of the Jews" in John 7:2 (shown above), one might be led to believe that Booths is a holiday somewhat obscure or even off-limits to being appreciated or appropriated by non-Jewish followers of Jesus. And because of the phrasing is repeated just before in John 7:1, one may think the holiday as something which is only appropriate to a bad group called "the Jews" who wanted to kill Yeshua. The implications of such a reading should make most people squirm indeed.

And none of that reading is true or even coherent. Its obvious from the story that Yeshua was not avoiding His own people as such. This would be rather difficult in Galilee as well, and it would be even more difficult since it includes Himself and His brothers. So we already know the author is talking about the religous leadership centered in Judea. But even from immediate context, we have reason to take ioudaioan as "Judean"; for example, as Stern notes, the region "Judea" (or as the KJV humourously calls it, "Jewry") is referenced three times in close range to the phrase. The festival involved pilgrimage to Jerusalem in Judea, and that was the point the author was making. And if "feast of the Jews" should be better understood as "Judean festival," then mutatis mutandis in 7:1, it was "the Judeans" - referring to the leadership in Jerusalem - seeking to kill Yeshua at that time. So, following Stern, Bruce, and others, something like the following makes more sense,

After these things Yeshua was walking in Galilee; for He was unwilling to walk in Judea, because the Judeans were seeking to kill Him. Now the Judean festival, the Feast of Booths, was near. Therefore His brothers said to Him, "Leave here and go into Judea..."

As is discussed here, Yeshua then goes on in John's text to show how the Feast being celebrated in Judea points to Himself, the Living Waters!

Happy Sukkot!

Yet another look at Leviticus 17:11

2009-09-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

Biblical Jewish faith takes teshuvah (repentance) along with blood sacrifice as both essential for atonement. This topic of blood can seem bizarre or primitive, but it is to teach us the real horror of sin: sin kills. Rather than explain away as unnecessary the principle of blood atonement found in the sacrificial system, we suggest that sacrifices in their function were like promissory notes paid off by Yeshua. All of the pieces were meant to point to something greater than the symbols themselves (and this is true both before and after Yeshua's Coming).

It is in this vein that I am putting up these notes by Sam (with son) in response to a Jews for Judaism article. It was sent by a Jewish friend who in the past has had some great questions about Messianic faith. Since she did not have a specific question this time - the upshot of the email was just "I don't know what to do with this ... Can you respond to it?" - we tried to oblige and just respond to what is said. Sadly, their article 1) misreads the context of Leviticus 17:11, 2) completely misunderstands the point of symbol of (sacrifical system --> Yeshua), 3) argues against a straw man of the Messianic point of view, failing to note, for example, that followers of Yeshua also assert the need for repentance, and 4) gets other non-trivial facts wrong, some of which are noted only briefly (below the jump).

ANOTHER LOOK AT LEVITICUS 17:11

You might remember that in junior high school, we were often given an assignment to write the title for a story; what is the central idea of a passage. Let's look at Leviticus 17:11 in context:

"And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who consumes any blood, I will set My face against that person who consumes blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. Therefore, I say to the children of Israel, `No one among you shall consume blood, nor shall any stranger who sojourns among you consume blood.'"

What should immediately be apparent is that the topic of this passage is not how to secure atonement from sins, but the prohibition against consuming blood. We are told parenthetically that the reason for this prohibition is that the blood contains the vitality of the animal (cf. Genesis 9:4, Deuteronomy 12:23) and consequently, when we bring an animal sacrifice, its blood serves as the atoning agent, and not another part of its body. Since Leviticus 17 doesn't come to teach us about the principles of atonement, we will have to look elsewhere for the Bible's most important teaching on how to repair our relationships with G-d.

While it is important to note as the writer does that the life of the atoning sacrifice is what is biblically at issue in the prohibition against consuming blood, it is he who fails to take into account the full context of the verse. Moses brings up Lev. 17:11 within the passage as an understood principle immediately following Lev. 16 and the bloody atonement prescribed of Yom Kippur. Whatever one learns in junior high, hopefully by college they understand that a mere paragraph is not always enough for context. Often, in fact, the surrounding passage and indeed the entire book are important. The point of Lev. 17:11 stands.

Before proceeding, let's consider another point about what is, and what is not being said in Leviticus 17:11. The passage does say that since blood symbolizes the life of the animal, G-d has given it to us as a means of atoning for our sins. But does the verse clearly teach that it is the only means G-d has provided to make atonement? As with any other Biblical study, we will have to examine this question in light of the Bible as a whole. But for now, we should note that our verse merely says that blood can serve as an atonement. It is an effective means of atonement, but by no means the only form of atonement.

By saying “a means of atoning for our sins” he misreads the text which says “to make atonement for your souls," minimizing it to refer to merely “a means.” Blood atonement (without faith-repentance) is not a sufficient means, of course; but it is necessary. In every case the author is avoiding the obvious issue of the tabernacle in general and the altar in particular – it was a place of blood sacrifice, constantly and daily. Those contextual details matter as well.

In the Torah, blood sacrifices were not the only path to atonement; there were other ways to achieve forgiveness. For example, incense served to atone for the people in Numbers 16:46-47,

In Num 16, the incense was symbolic for the sacrifice as it was representative of Aaron’s office to make sacrifice. In Exodus 30:15-15, it was the silver money (kesef) that was used in the atoning work in the Tabernacle that they contributed towards and so identified with the atonement made there, and so it was called atonement money. and giving charity is described in Exodus 30:15-16 and Numbers 31:50 as `making atonement for your souls' - the same expression as in Leviticus 17:11.

In Num 31:50, because of the bloodshed of war they are also giving gifts to the tabernacle that will be used there where atonement is made. In each case the items are identified with the tabernacle activity which was a place of bloody sacrifice.

In reality, blood sacrifices were the least effective of all the means of atonement mentioned in the Bible. One important limitation to the effectiveness of sacrifices is that they were only brought for unintentional sins (ie. someone didn't know that kindling a fire was prohibited on the Sabbath, or they were aware of this, but thought it was Sunday when kindling the fire). Sacrifices did not help to atone for sins that were done intentionally (Leviticus 4, and Numbers 15:22-31)

Agreed; one still had to pay the consequences for intentional sin and repent. But unintentional does not mean unimportant. In fact, unintentionality is involved in all sins, as is ignorance. There’s always an aspect of ignorance in all sin; therefore sacrifice is always necessary for all sin. While Yeshua was being crucified, while they were driving in the nails, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they are doing." As professional executioners they knew very well what they were doing, but they did not know they were crucifying the Messiah. Those who sin consciously are unaware of the impact of the sin upon themselves, in both the sin’s corruption of them and their culpability.

Examining the Christian interpretation of Leviticus 17:11 generates some serious problems. What happens if someone can't afford to purchase an animal for his sin offering? Is it possible that G-d would institute a system of atonement that could only be used by the wealthy? The Torah took this into account and allowed the poor person to bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons if he couldn't afford a lamb (Leviticus 5:7). However, what if someone was so destitute, that he couldn't afford even these small birds?

"But if his means are insufficient for two turtledoves or two young pigeons, then for his offering for that which he has sinned, he shall bring the tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering; he shall not put oil on it or place incense on it, for it is a sin offering." (Leviticus 5:11)

Since flour could be used for a sin offering, it is clear that blood was not a prerequisite for atonement.

In this case as well, blood is essential for the next verse in Lev 5:12 states that the flour of poor was given “with the offerings of the LORD by fire: it is a sin offering.” The flour was offered upon the altar with the bloody sacrifices - only then was it a sin offering!

Another example will drive home the point. The proposition that only blood sacrifices could secure atonement creates a dilemma. Could it be that G-d would set up a system of atonement that wouldn't be available to all people at all times? While the Temple stood, sacrifices did serve as part of the atonement process. But what is the fate of Jewish people who don't have access to the Temple? What were the Jewish people supposed to do after 586 BCE when the first Temple was destroyed and they were exiled to Babylon? What did the Jewish people do in the times of the Maccabees when the Syrian-Greeks were in control of the Temple and didn't allow sacrifices.

Remember the sacrifices pointed to something beyond themselves. Even as the Prophets from Moses onward prophesied only of the days of Messiah (Berakhot 34b), the Scriptures are clear that the bulls and goats themselves are not the final atonement (Heb. 10:4), but were given as types or pictures of what was to come. Does that mean we can then disregard the principle of blood atonement as given in Leviticus 17:11? If so, how?

Christians erroneously claim that Rabbinic Judaism came up with novel, non-Biblical measures to deal with atonement after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. Actually, it wasn't Talmudic innovation at all- the Bible anticipated the possibility of the cessation of sacrifices. When King Solomon finally laid the finishing touches on the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, he inaugurated it with a moving dedication speech (I Kings 8; II Chronicles 6). In this lengthy speech of almost 50 verses, you will notice that Solomon doesn't speak about sacrifices at all! This omission would be strange if the most crucial part of the Temple were the sacrifices. Actually, the central focus of the Temple was the Holy Ark (Exodus 25) containing the Torah. The Temple was first and foremost a symbol of G-d's presence and revelation to the Jewish people (I Kings 8:13, Exodus 25:8).

This is incorrect, since the ark top was actually the mercy seat where the atonement blood of Yom Kippur was sprinkled (Leviticus 16:14; Exodus 25:22). So this affirms the principle of blood atonement.

Towards the end of his speech, Solomon deals with the possibility of the Jewish people being denied access to the Temple in the eventuality that they are exiled from the land of Israel.

"If they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, and pray to You toward their land which You have given to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name; then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven Your dwelling place, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all their transgressions which they have transgressed against You..." (I Kings 8:46-50).This seminal passage puts the spotlight on the Christian misunderstanding of Leviticus 17:11. The Bible is clearly teaching that sacrifices weren't necessary in order to atone for sins. Prayer and repentance are cited here as effective means for securing atonement.

As 1 Kings 8:46-48 states that we “pray to You toward their land which You have given to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name” what this saying is that when out of the land, we had to pray toward the Temple in Jerusalem. This was to identify with the bloody offerings made there for forgiveness. Daniel 6:10 "Daniel …entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God." Why did he pray with his window opened toward Jerusalem? Because Daniel knew his bible. It is a false assumption that in his prayer Daniel somehow minimized the principle of blood sacrifice of the Temple, the house of God. Incidentally, that’s also why from wherever we are we pray in Yeshua’s name- He is the final sacrifice we look to, identify with and depend on. This is what God has provided that we might have assurance of atonement and forgiveness. As for King Solomon’s speech it assumes the blood sacrifices throughout as noted above, even as Solomon dedicated the Temple and its altar he made many blood sacrifices (1 Kings 8:5, 64).

Certainly, when the Temple stood, and one could afford an animal, a sacrifice was brought as part of the atonement process for unintentional sins. Leviticus 17:11 teaches that when we bring such an animal as a sacrifice, we aren't allowed to consume its blood, because as the life force, it is the part of the animal that affects our atonement.

Christian dogma holds that the crucifixion of Jesus at Calvary served as the final atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Christianity insists that this is not just a Pauline innovation, but reflects the requirements of the Jewish Bible, and tries to establish this by pointing to Leviticus 17:11 as the key to atonement in the Tanach.

However, if this passage is examined, it will be clear that Jesus could never serve as an atoning sacrifice. Obviously, the shedding of blood by pricking my finger or killing my cat won't fulfill the Biblical requirements for atonement. The Torah delineates how sacrifices are to be brought.

We will address this below (see: "bottom line"), as it reflects a startling confusion.

"For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls..."

Clearly, not any spilled blood is accepted by the Torah as a sacrifice. Jesus' crucifixion may qualify as an atonement according to the Greek Testament,

by the way, the New Covenant writings are written what may be called "Judeo-Greek," as the writers were Jews who wrote in Greek (much as their writers and we are all Jews who are writing in English, or RaMBaM wrote in Arabic, or Daniel wrote in Aramaic, etc.). By this author's contrast with "Jewish Bible," it is clear he intends the phrase "Greek Testament" to indicate a sort of Gentile and foreign thing, but this is not the case.

but since his blood was not offered on the altar, it is not in line with what the Torah mandates

When Scripture states “upon the altar” it is not saying that God-given sacrifice is limited to the altar, but that was the altar was representative of the gracious provision for sacrifice and that it was G-d ordained. But this is true for all of the things which variously point to Messiah.

There are actually several other factors which would render the crucifixion of Jesus an unacceptable sacrifice. According to the Biblical rules in Leviticus, all sacrifices had to be offered by a Priest who descends from Aaron. This was not the case in the death of Jesus, who was crucified by Roman soldiers. Additionally, Biblical law prohibited any sacrifice which was blemished or maimed (Leviticus 22:19-21). However, prior to his crucifixion, Jesus was whipped and beaten (Matthew 27:26, Mark 15:19, John 19:3) which would render him unfit. Furthermore, Jesus was circumcised in the flesh, which according to Philippians 3:2 and Galatians 5:12 is considered mutilation.

On Galatians 5:12 (equally Philippians 3:2) - and this should be obvious to anyone who actually reads the text - Paul (a Jew, who in Acts 16:3 had his fellow worker Timothy circumcised, since he was Jewish but his father was not) was making the point that those who require Gentiles be circumcised are mutilators of the flesh, because Gentiles do not have to become Jewish.

Frequently, Christians react to this line of reasoning by protesting that it is improper to be so literal, and that Jesus' death was more of a symbolic or spiritual sacrifice. This would be fine if the Bible provided for such ethereal offerings, but such is not the case.

Bottom line: they reverse the symbolic relationship here. No, the sacrifice of Yeshua is not symbolic, merely spiritual, or metaphorical; yes, it is considered real. On the contrary, with respect to Him it is the entire sacrificial system which is ultimately "symbol" - not because it is "ethereal" or unreal, but because it points to a fulfillment which is outside itself (outside the system).

To illustrate this idea, consider a sign, one of many that might be located alongside the interstate, which reads "Boston - Next Seven Exits" or "Boston 21 miles." Yes, it is indeed functioning as a sign, but it also has to have regulations: it must be a certain strength, height above the ground, visibility range, etc.

But should anyone expect the city to which the sign was referring - Boston itself - to meet all the same requirements that are given for the sign? For example, should the city of Boston be no less than 10 feet above the interstate so as allow for clearance of oncoming traffic? That would be ridiculous. More to the point, it would be a misunderstanding of the way signs work. The relationship between a sign (the sacrificial system substituting year to year to remind people of the fatal seriousness of sin) and thing which it signifies (the Messiah who atones truly and once-for-all as a substitute) is indeed a symbolic relationship, and that is precisely why there are going to be differences. This doesn't imply Messiah isn't the real thing.

The Greek Testament, however, does insist that Jesus was a real sacrifice, literally fulfilling the Biblical requirements of such "But coming to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs...in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled: `Not a bone of him shall be broken.'" (John 19:33-36)

The Gospel of John portrays Jesus as the Paschal lamb which was not supposed to have any of its bones broken (Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12). Since the author of John insists that Jesus was a real sacrifice to the extent that the Biblical rules of the Passover were fulfilled in him, we can't dismiss the problems cited above as legalistic nit-picking.

Since Messiah fulfilled all sacrifice there is by necessity a combination of elements involved in Messiah’s once and for all fulfillment. However, with signifying relationship there will be dissimilar aspects to the two things. Whether or not an approach which requires one-to-one correspondence between the types in a many-to-one analogy is "legalistic nit-picking" is beside the point; its just confusion.

One wonders why the Greek Testament chose to type Jesus as a Paschal lamb rather than the sacrifice for the Day of Atonement.

In Hebrews 9-10:18 Messiah is also seen as the final Yom Kippur sacrifice.

We know from Exodus 12 that the Passover sacrifice did not serve as an atonement for sins, it commemorates the exodus from Egypt.

As noted, Messiah fulfilled all sacrifice for both sin and redemption. Passover pictured the redemption Messiah would bring our people, as Seh HaElohim, the Lamb of God.

Even when the lamb was slaughtered in Egypt and its blood smeared on the doorposts, it did not serve to atone for the sins of anyone. It was a sign for the angel of death to pass over Jewish homes during the plague of the first born. The only people in danger were first born males, the blood wasn't a help to other people in the family, and didn't serve as an atonement for the first born. A more fitting prototype for Jesus would have been the Yom Kippur sacrifice, which was an atonement for the sins of all the people.

Perhaps it bears repeating that in Hebrews 9-10:18 Messiah is also seen as the final Yom Kippur sacrifice. They even quote from this text below in order to try to make a different point.

It is interesting that according to Leviticus 16:10,21-22, the animal which effectuated the atonement for the sins of the nation was not killed, but sent live out into the desert. Again, the shedding of blood is not a sine qua non for atonement.

As if the shedding of blood did not also take place along with the scapegoat at Yom Kippur! Clearly, the principle is affirmed there that the shedding of blood as well as repentance is a sine qua non for atonement.

The Greek Testament went to some great lengths to demonstrate that the atoning death of Jesus was predicated upon the Jewish Bible. In the book of Hebrews, a verse from the book of Psalms is quoted as evidence that the sacrifice of Jesus was part of G-d's original plan for the world.

"Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for me" (Hebrews 10:5 referring to Psalms 40:6).

In verse 10 of our passage from Hebrews, we are told that the body spoken of refers to the body of Jesus. However, the Greek Testament took some great liberties in quoting from the book of Psalms, which never mentions a body being prepared:

"Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; my ears You have opened; Burnt offerings and sin offerings You have not required" (Psalm 40:6).

The writer of Hebrews uses a Greek translation of Tenakh called the Septuagint, commonly used by Greek speaking Jews. Its later separation from what would be called the Masoretic text tradition notwithstanding, the Septuagint was not unfaithful or taking liberties. A nuance or facet of a word is often used to make a point by a teacher (cf. Targumim)

The author of Romans asserts that the Jewish scriptures spoke about the Messiah coming in order to eradicate sin from Israel:

"And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written, `The deliverer will come from Zion and remove ungodliness from Jacob'." (Romans 11:26 citing Isaiah 59:20)

However, checking the original source in Isaiah reveals the flawed foundation of the claim made in the book of Romans.

"And a redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the L-rd."

Isaiah didn't teach that the Messiah's purpose is to remove sin; rather, he will come to the Jewish people when they show themselves worthy by turning away from sin.

This section deals with the Return of the Messiah after our people nationally “turn away from the transgression” of unbelief in Messiah Yeshua and He comes directly from heaven, the real Zion, that Jerusalem represented. Paul is not only quoting Isaiah 59:20, but, combining in a manner similar to the Siddur, also looking at Psalm 14:7, Psalm 20:2. Checking context of Romans 11, it is clear that they are misconstruing Paul's usage (which gets the substance right), since he is not talking about "eradicating sin," but talking about the fullness of Israel 's redemption, even when "all Israel will be saved." And it is not about showing worthiness, but about repentance (returning to HaShem).

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT VICARIOUS ATONEMENT?

One wonders why throughout the four Gospels, Jesus never speaks about his death serving as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world

This is clearly false (Mt 20:28, John 3:15-16).

Is the idea that an innocent person can be killed instead of those who are guilty consistent with what the Bible teaches? After the sin of the Golden Calf, G-d expressed His intention to destroy the Jewish people. Moses intercedes, and offers to die in their place. In response, G-d says "Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book!" (Exodus 32:32-33). Throughout the Bible, G-d says that one person cannot die for the sins of another:

"Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deuteronomy 24:16, II Kings 14:6).

"But everyone will die for his own sin; each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge" (Jeremiah 31:30).

"The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:20).

"No man can by any means redeem his brother, or give to G-d a ransom for him" (Psalms 49:7).

"So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who has shed it!" (Numbers 35:33).

Scripture is clear that we are all responsible for out own sins –but that doesn’t preclude that a sacrificial victim is graciously provided as atonement on behalf of the repentant offerer, as is obvious from the Scriptures.

Although Romans 4:5 says that Jesus justifies the ungodly, the Tanach teaches that "He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the righteous, both of them are an abomination to the L-rd" (Proverbs 17:15).

This Proverbs portion is dealing with a bad judge not a good G-d who has forgiven through His provided atonement, ultimately in Yeshua! Remember, blood atonement is necessary but so is repentance. In order to repent, a person must recognize he or she is ungodly. Just because they want to leave out blood atonement does not mean we want to leave out repentance. They not only are pretending as if we think repentance is unnecessary, but they act as if to repent means to not have sinned in the first place!

If indeed, Jesus came as the final sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world, why does the Tanach predict that the Temple will be rebuilt and sacrifices resumed?

"Even those I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples." (Isaiah 56:7). "From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia My worshipers, My dispersed ones will bring My offerings." (Zephaniah 3:10)

"All the flocks of Kedar will be gathered together to you, the rams of Nebaioth will minister to you; they will go up with acceptance on My altar, and I shall glorify My glorious house." (Isaiah 60:7)

"And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in their midst forever." (Ezekiel 37:26)

"And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the L-rd offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the L-rd, as in the days of old and as in former years." (Malachi 3:3-4)

"And every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the L-rd of hosts; and all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them." (Zechariah 14:21) "And it shall be the princes part to provide the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the libations...to make atonement for the house of Israel." (Ezekiel 45:17)

The rebuilt Temple etc will be a memorial to Messiah’s sacrifice. Just as those before Him pointed toward Him, so those in the future will be memorials or point back to King Messiah's work. This is what all our present “sacrifices” of time, talent and treasure do also in a small way. His sacrifice alone is effectual for atonement of sin.

The Christian claim that our sins can only be forgiven if blood is shed on our behalf also seems to limit the power of G-d. It's ludicrous to say that G-d`s ability to forgive us is dependent on anything. One of the most basic teachings in the Bible is that since G-d is merciful, He often forgives us simply because He is merciful. "Who is a G-d like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love." (Micah 7:18; cf.Psalm 103:7-18). Even when we don't seek G-d appropriately, He has the ability to reach out to us with love and forgive us:

"Their heart was not steadfast toward Him, nor were they faithful in His covenant. But He, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity...remembering that they were but flesh." (Psalms 78:36-39)

Yes, He is merciful and gracious - that is why He provided sacrifice s as atonement to begin with and Messiah as the fulfillment of His gracious provision. There is no question of His mercy, but His attributes of Love and Mercy, rather than being limited, are to be understood alongside His Holiness (Kodesh) and His Righteousness. There is the offense of sin to be dealt with through the sacrifice, this is why something (as noted in the Torah portions above) had to be done to appropriate His forgiveness and mercy. This argument by the writer that other means such as incense, etc could be used for sacrifice contradicts his statement before when he (or she) argued against “blood” as the only means.

"You have not brought Me the sheep of your burnt offerings...or the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened Me with your sins...Nevertheless, I will wipe out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins." (Isaiah 43:23-25)

A reading of the three verses in their context will show this is not what Isaiah is saying.

"Is. 43:21 “The people whom I formed for Myself
Will declare My praise.
Is. 43:22 ¶ “Yet you have not called on Me, O Jacob;
But you have become weary of Me, O Israel.
Is. 43:23 “You have not brought to Me the sheep of your burnt offerings,

Nor have you honored Me with your sacrifices.
I have not burdened you with offerings,
Nor wearied you with incense.
Is. 43:24 “You have bought Me not sweet cane with money,

Nor have you filled Me with the fat of your sacrifices;
Rather you have burdened Me with your sins,
You have wearied Me with your iniquities.
Is. 43:25 ¶ “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake,

And I will not remember your sins.
Is. 43:26 “Put Me in remembrance, let us argue our case together;
State your cause, that you may be proved right.
Is. 43:27 “Your first forefather sinned,
And your spokesmen have transgressed against Me.
Is. 43:28 “So I will pollute the princes of the sanctuary,
And I will consign Jacob to the ban and Israel to revilement. ”

What is being said here is not that G-d will forgive them without sacrifice, but that they have not yet brought Him sacrifice - even though (Nevertheless, vs. 25) He is the One who can forgive them and wipe out their sins!

THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF ATONEMENT

One of the clearest indications that Christianity is off base in its insistence on the centrality of blood sacrifices is that none of the prophets speaks about it. There isn't one instance in the prophetic books where the Jewish people are told that in order to get right with G-d they need to get covered by the blood. If that's the case, what is the fundamental teaching of the Tanach on the issue of atonement? What theme is reiterated time and again by the holy prophets in the Jewish Bible?

"That every man will turn from his evil way, then I will forgive their iniquity and their sin." (Jeremiah 36:3).

"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the L-rd, and He will have compassion on him; and to our G-d, for He will abundantly pardon." (Isaiah 55:7).

"I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, `I will confess my transgressions to the L-rd', and You did forgive the guilt of my sin." (Psalm 32:5).

"And if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (II Chronicles 7:14). "But if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed and observes all My statutes and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die. All his transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has practiced he shall live...When a wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and practices justice and righteousness, he will save his life...Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you (Ezekiel 18:21- 22,27,30).

"By lovingkindness and truth iniquity is atoned for..." (Proverbs 16:6).

"If you return to G-d you will be restored; if you remove unrighteousness far from your tent...then you will delight in G-d..." (Job 22:23-27).

"Depart from evil, and do good, so you will abide forever." (Psalm 37:27, cf. Ezekiel 33, Zechariah 1:3, Jeremiah 26:13).

The central teaching of the Bible is that only a break with our past and a sincere turning in repentance can restore our relationships with G-d. If I go off the path, I have to put myself back on track, and G-d will forgive me. Even when sacrifices were offered, they in and of themselves didn't effect atonement. The sacrifice was part of the process, it helped bring us to the core of atonement which is achieved by TESHUVAH, returning to G-d by forsaking our evil ways and praying for forgiveness. One of the main teachings of the prophets was to chide Jewish people who thought that sacrifices were the essential element of atonement:

"What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me? says the L-rd. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed cattle. And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats...Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come let us reason together says the L-rd, `Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they will be like wool, if you consent and obey..." (Isaiah 1:11-18).

"The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the L-rd." (Proverbs 15:8).

"To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the L-rd than sacrifice." (Proverbs 21:3). "For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of G-d rather than burnt offerings." (Hoseah 6:6).

"Has the L-rd as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the L-rd? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken more than the fat of rams." (I Samuel 15:22).

"With what shall I come to the L-rd, and bow myself before the G-d on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the L-rd take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the L-rd require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d." (Micah 6:6-8,cf. Amos 5:22- 24, Jeremiah 7, Psalm 69:31-32).

Since repentance, and not blood is the Biblical form of atonement, we now understand how in I Kings 8, Solomon explained that even if the Jewish people don't have access to the Temple, they still have access to G-d.

In all of the above the writer is leaving out that at the time that the these Scriptures were written blood sacrifice was going on. The Scriptures are clear that for those that may have made sacrifice as a religious duty without sincerity, and that repentance (sincerity of heart) is essential with the sacrifice, but is inadequate without the sacrifice. This is exactly what a careful reading Psalm 51, etc will show. This is the teaching as well in the New Covenant –it is not merely that Yeshua died but that you turn from your sins and believe sincerely upon Him. Faith was and is an essential element in atonement and salvation.

This will illuminate a famous story found in the book of Jonah. G-d sends Jonah to the evil city of Ninveh to warn them of their impending destruction. Jonah doesn't come into the city and tell the people that unless they begin offering sacrifices they are doomed. Their response to his warnings is to repent: they fast, pray, and turn from their evil. What is G-d's response?

"When G-d saw their deeds that they turned from their wicked way, then G-d relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them, and He did not do it." (Jonah 3:10).

In similar fashion, Daniel advised king Nebuchadnezzar on how to atone for his transgressions:

"Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you: Redeem your sins by doing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor." (Daniel 4:27).

In both of these cases, repentance by the pagan Ninevites (Assyrians) and Babylonians merely held off judgment but did not remove their judgment which eventually came upon both countries.

This principle will also help explain a passage in the book of Hoseah. Hoseah was a prophet to the 10 northern tribes in the kingdom of Israel during a time when there was a civil war going on between them and the two tribes of the kingdom of Judah in the south. Because of the strife, the tribes up north couldn't get to the Temple in Jerusalem to offer sacrifices. Did this leave them with no way of atoning for their sins? The prophet advises:

"Return, O Israel, to the L-rd your G-d, For you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the L-rd. Say to Him, `Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, for we will render as bullocks the offerings of our lips'." (Hoseah 14:1-2).

Actually many who sincerely sought the Lord from the northern country of Israel went to Jerusalem to worship though it was contrary to the political correctness of their country, see 2Chronicles 11:16; 15:9-12

We are able to approach G-d directly with prayer, which is possible at all times; and G-d assures us that sincere prayer can achieve forgiveness for our sins:

"Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O L-rd, the G-d of my salvation. And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O L-rd, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not delight in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of G-d are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, O G-d, You will not despise." (Psalms 51:14-17, re:II Samuel 12:13).

"I will praise the name of G-d with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This shall please the L-rd better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs." (Psalm 69:30-31).

"For You, L-rd, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You. Give ear, O L-rd to my prayer, and give heed to the voice of my supplications." (Psalm 86:5-6).

"And listen to the supplications of Your servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place; hear from heaven Your dwelling place, hear and forgive." (II Chronicles 6:21).

As noted before, all this was prayed along with the sacrifices at the time.

Are Christians consistent with the Jewish Bible when they claim that atonement is only possible with a blood sacrifice? Did the Rabbis just make up the idea that we can restore our relationship with G-d through prayer and repentance? YOU DECIDE!

These arguments are not sound, and are in some cases quite misleading as shown. Blood sacrifice was and is scripturally essential for atonement and forgiveness.

Who is begging the question?

2009-09-15T04:59:00.000-07:00

I see where Rabbi Brackman is coming from in his ynet op/ed. He is trying to make an argument against a multiple source theory, an approach which basically seeks to dismantle divine Torah. He knows his audience is ideologically mixed, including many of whom might be quick to pigeonhole his (my?) views as "fundie."

But, then, its also an audience with one broad ideological commonality: most of our people do not believe Jesus is the Messiah. Moreover, a broadly shared traditional assumption is that however "those Christians" might interpret the Hebrew Bible, they do so incorrectly.

So his rhetorical approach which casts liberal biblical critical scholars and Yeshua-believers as similar may be effective. Now such as an argument this would not be valid, but did not have room to make an in depth critique of an entire edifice, just offer an opinionated perspective. SO I must admit that Yeshua believers make a common foil (one shared by most of his audience in considering the Torah), and for him to play off of us makes a useful swipe.

However, while I can appreciate the Rabbi's move and even join him in his critique, I question the substance of the comparison. The substantial differences matter more than the rhetorically effective similarities as regards followers of Yeshua and biblical critics.

On the one hand, Rabbi Brackman is correct that approaches which seek to dismantle traditional Torah authorship (and ditto for trying to dismantle the New Covenant writings) depend on unproven philosophical assumption. Well, actually its more like a network of interrelated assumptions: anti-supernaturalism (the belief that miracles are impossible, Spinoza); skepticism (the idea that should never trust miracle reports, Hume); agnosticism (the notion that it is impossible to know anything metaphysical, Kant); even evolutionary theory (that we get more from less over time, as applied to more than just biological Darwinism); all these and more have the part to play in the now repsectable 'discipline' of Torah-text antagonism.

By contrast, we know that this is not how Yeshua-faith developed. Yes, plenty of assumptions (even the assumption of Yeshua-faith itself) might have become a basis eventually; there surely there are plenty of Christians today who read in all sorts of things, including Messiah Himself, into this or that verse. And that's not a particularly Christian (or liberal Bible critic) conceit, but rather a human one. If we go back to the genesis of Yeshua-faith, they were responding to a singular, particular, assumption-defying historical event. The original proclaimers of Yeshua's resurrection were Jewish, after all, but neither their traditional Jewish assumptions nor the more widespread Greek assumptions had any a priori room for what they were proclaiming. So the question I'd throw into the mix is: how is it somehow unreasonable enough to consider Yeshua now? Perhaps what makes it seem unreasonable is the way Yeshua continues to confound our various assumptions. This dovetails well with the Rabbi's point made at the outset:

There are many things that others may find unbelievable and unreasonable but, after thorough review, are found to be true.

Scientific Authority

2009-07-31T05:24:00.000-07:00

Americans generally have an abysmal level of knowledge of the Bible. In this world of mass ignorance, to have headlines proclaim that this or that fact about [Yeshua] has been declared untrue by supposedly scientific inquiry has the effect of gospel. There is no basis on which most people can counter these authoritative-sounding statements. - LUKE TIMOTHY JOHNSON

As an American I agree: Things which are anti-Bible have the appearance of scientific authority in our culture, and pro-Bible statements by contrast tend to sound cute and pious. Or is that an overstatement?

Tragedy and Hope

2009-07-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent thoughts on Tisha B'av by Sam Nadler for his congregants at Hope of Israel Congregation.

This coming Shabbat (Aug. 1) will be what is traditionally called Shabbat Nachamu ("Comfort") a reprive from the day mourning where Scriptures such as Isaiah 40 ("Comfort ye, Comfort ye my people") are read as part of the Haftarah portions. It is interesting to note that in some traditions Tisha b'Av was to be the day of the birth for the Messiah. Why? Because out of tragedy comes the greatest joy.

I (Matt) will be using the occasion this Shabbat to speak from Jer. 31:35-37. Sam and Miriam will be in Los Angeles ministering at ben David Congregation.

Sam's Q & A on Four-Fold Branching Out

2009-07-08T05:25:00.000-07:00

Q: "Regarding the four Gospels, I don’t understand the reason for the repetition of the same story. Why would the Christian Bible have that?"

The four accounts of Messiah’s life, death, and resurrection each have a different perspective on the same history, perspectives which interweave with Biblical prophecy. For just one small example, each perspective alludes to a different inflection on a Messianic figure: "the Branch" (or Tzemakh). Matthew presents Yeshua the King, "a righteous Branch of David" (Jeremiah 33:15); Mark presents Yeshua as "My Servant the Branch" (Zechariah 3:8); Luke presents Yeshua as "a man whose name is Branch," (Zechariah 6:12); and in John, Yeshua is the Son of God, or "the Branch of the Lord," as prophesied in Isaiah 4:2:

In that day the Branch of the LORD (Tzemakh Adonai) will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel (Isaiah 4:2).

This Jewish phenomenon of repetition is similar to what we see in the Tenakh (OT), for example, between Kings and Chronicles, in sections of Kings and Isaiah, or between Isaiah 2 and Micah 4.

an active Negev

2009-07-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

Some good writing on meshichim in Arad and Beersheva from the J-post coming out last week.

Messianic leader and plaintiff Howard Bass sheds light on the case in Beersheva.
Larry Derfner reporting on that same case.
Here is Larry with a longer piece on Arad: "Watch out, Missionaries!"

Trader Joe's to be targeted by anti-Israel boycott

2009-06-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

The JFGC has the scoop.

The boycott is set for June 20!

What is in a Name?

2009-06-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

As our note at the top of the print newsletter "The Shmooze Letter" states, "‘Shmooze’ is Yiddish for chatting with a friend." That’s the official take, but there's a little more detail to be given. For some people, this word emblazoned on our masthead may seem foreign, and the tiny note explaining the meaning may not really help. So what about this word "shmooze"?

According to Leo Rosten, author of The Joys of Yiddish, the word means "a friendly ... prolonged, heart-to-heart talk." He states, "I have never encountered a word that conveys ‘heart-to-heart chit-chat’ as warmly as does shmooze." Well, that's a high goal we've set!

Yiddish is a Germanic language spoken by the Jewish people throughout Eastern Europe, and one of many languages of the Jewish people throughout the centuries. While Yiddish had been dying out as a spoken language, it is now seeing a minor resurgance. In any case, it has extended a pervasive influence on American English ("that bagel looks stale," "you’ve got quite a lot of chutzpah," "that bagel tastes even more stale than it looks").

Now, many words in Yiddish come from Hebrew, and the Hebrew origins of ‘shmooze’ turn out to be fairly relevant. It actually comes from the biblical word shmu’ot, meaning "things heard," or reports (see Dan 11:44). So in a very famous passage of Scripture we read "Who has believed our report (shmu’ateinu), and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed" (Isaiah 53:1). From the same root of that word we get the Shema, meaning "Hear" with the sense of heeding and obeying: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" (Deut. 6:4). Through sharing our through our newsletter and blog, our hope is that the good news of from our great God to Israel will be hearable.

There is also a pun lurking in the background. Sam’s name in Hebrew is Shmu’el, which can be shortened to Shmu, and so, "Shmu’s letter"="Shmooze Letter." However, we are assured that this pun came to mind after the fact.

(Picture above: An example of Yiddish text, in this case John 1. Yiddish is traditionally written in Hebrew characters. To receive the Shmooze Letter in print for free please email your info to shmooze @ wordofmessiah.org)

Word of Messiah on Facebook

2009-06-18T18:43:00.000-07:00

You can now become a fan of Word of Messiah on Facebook.

Let my People Facebook

2009-03-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

A Facebook Haggadah

Tradition and Torah intermixed

2009-03-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

The Mishnah tells us all about the four cups (Pesachim 99b). But how much farther back does the tradition go? We know that Yeshua’s seder meal used the red wine to refer to His blood (Luke 22:20 - Christians know this as the "eucharist"). We also know that the same was used centuries before the time of Yeshua (for example, see the Book of Jubilees and Philo). Yet, we also know it is not in the Torah. What does this tell us? Some may draw from this that authority be given to the notion of Torah Shebe Al Peh (Oral Torah). But for those of us who have come to know the Messiah, the Living Word, it shows that we have freedom to incorporate our traditions, even as Yeshua did. For us, Messiah the Passover Lamb is the center and illumination, not only of the Scriptures, but also of Jewish history.

From the "studio"

2009-03-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

(that is, Miriam's office with blankets tacked up to absorb sound)

Recording and producing my mom's music has really given me an appreciation for the talent God has blessed her with. There will be an EP of five songs available shortly called Bo'u Nishtachaveh and this should anticipate a full length to come out later this Spring. Be on the lookout for tracks to preview here! - Matt

Ortiz Bombing Still Unsolved

2009-03-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

Update via Jerusalem Institute of Justice:

Exactly almost one year ago, on March 20, 2008, 15-year-old Ami Ortiz stayed home from school. It was Purim – a Jewish festival in which holiday baskets are sent to friends and acquaintances to commemorate the Jews’ thwarting of Haman’s evil plot as recorded in the book of Esther in the Bible. To Ami’s delight, someone left a holiday package on the Ortiz family’s doorstep. When young Ami opened the package, it exploded in his face, filled his body with hundreds of pieces of shrapnel and left him in critical condition. Ami’s father, David, is a pastor of a Messianic community in the town of Ariel. Apparently, this was not an attempt to injure a fifteen year old boy, but rather an attempt to murder a minister of the gospel in Israel.
A police investigation was opened after the bombing. However, the Israeli police have been extremely indifferent and apparently negligent in conducting the inquiry. The surveillance cameras which had been installed by the Ortiz family actually managed to film the person who delivered the package. They handed this recording over to the authorities; but to their dismay, no arrests have been made and the police have refused to return the tape to the Ortiz family. A year after the tape was confiscated by the police and after repeated refusals by the police to release their property, the family brought the matter to court. With Ami and his parents present, the judge ruled to return the tape to the Ortiz family.

Last May, a day after a revealing expose on the issue was aired on Israeli television (Channel 1, "Yoman Shishi"), police contacted the Ortiz family asking them to resend many important documents pertaining to the investigation – the original copies had been lost. This proves that nothing had been done until the issue was brought to the media, two months after the actual event. Distinguished lawyers and representatives of pro-Israeli organizations have tried to bring this case before government officials. Promises have been made, but with no satisfactory results. It is suspected that a number of high-ranking officials and fundamentalist Rabbis in Israel are attempting to engage in a serious cover-up of the true situation.

We are concerned that if this type of violence against Messianic believers in Israel goes unchecked by the prosecuting authorities, it can create a slippery slope of violence towards the community. Fliers, showing pictures of Messianic leaders and congregational members have been have been circulated in every major city and many smaller settlements in Israel. These fliers contain a message to the public to be aware of these missionaries who are trying to steal the souls of Jews, and who masquerade as Jews but are not Jews. Names and addresses have been published under the pictures, which is against the law. In Ariel, the fliers were posted in every bus stop from Tel Aviv to Ariel, a distance of 45 kilometers. We do not know if the perpetrators of the bombing in the Ortiz home were the ones who published these fliers, but at the very least, the fliers incited and helped them to identify the family and their address.

It has been said that the test of a true democracy is the way it treats its smallest minority. We believe that legal status of the Messianic Jewish community is just a micro-cosmos of a much broader issue; namely, the treatment of non-orthodox Jewish citizens by the government of Israel. All citizens of Israel should be entitled to full and equal protection by law. When this is not the case, the very legitimacy of our state as the only democracy in the Middle East could be called into question. This would not be beneficial for the State of Israel, especially with the current winds of anti-Semitism blowing across the international arena.

Re-sold to the highest bidder?

2009-01-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

Sadly I could not find The Feasts of Israel for 45.00$. But, there was a Messianic Answer Book going for 40$ and up!

Why not buy new from us for less? Who knows, if this continues we may have to dramatically increase our prices, just to be charitable to our competition! ;)

By the way, from the bookstore you can also Messianic Wisdom new for half the price that some re-seller on Amazon wants. Who would have thought?

So the lesson is: please support the ministry that produces these fine books rather than get taken by re-sellers on Amazon! :)

Buy it direct

2009-01-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

The following is taken from a three-way email conversation had today.

Sam, where can I purchase a copy of your book THE FEASTS OF ISRAEL ? Mine was' borrwed' & never returned!! It was my most favorite book !! I'm heartbroken!! -Mark
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Mark ... you can order it from the shopping cart at www.wordofmessiah.org

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Mark,
the copy I had was all blue & just said THE FEASTS OF ISRAEL on it. I found one on Amazon (used) but they want $45.00 for it!! They said it was out of print.--Wendy

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Rejoice! We've reprinted them and added to them under the name "Messiah in the Feasts of Israel" --and much less than Amazon!

Get them while they last! -Sam

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YAY!!!!! Thanks so much for all your help!!!!

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Yea, Yeshua!!!!

It's our privilege to serve you for His sake!

Sam on the King of the Jews

2009-01-07T06:57:00.000-08:00

Sam Nadler recently spoke with commentator Gregg Jackson about being Jewish and believing in "you know who."

Religious Freedom in Israel: a mixed situation

2008-09-25T06:44:00.001-07:00

It is good to see the J Post is covering the release on religious freedom in Israel put out by the US state department. The Post mentions the painful reality that the case investigating who tried to blow up Ami Ortiz remains open, as well as the fact that no one among the twelve, who the Israeli supreme court case granted the right to persue citizenship this past spring, has actually made it through the Ministry of Interior's system yet. Here is a pointed quote from one who was in the Supreme Court case:

"I see myself as a Zionist. Why else would I give up a good job, family, friends, an incredible education and come here to be reduced to nothing?" he said. "I believe in the State of Israel and I want to raise my family here and I can't imagine myself elsewhere."

Klinghoffer: are we unfair to Messianic Jews?

2008-06-12T13:22:00.001-07:00

Orthodox Jewish writer David Klinghoffer argues that the Jewish community is unfair to Messianic Jews, in that it applies a double standard to them viz-a-viz secular Jews. This is, of course, an argument that believers in Yeshua have been making about themselves for a long time. So I was happily suprised to see it being articulated well by the author of Why the Jews Rejected Jesus.

(the article is from 2005)

Don't know whether to laugh or cry

2008-05-02T09:12:00.001-07:00

Messianic alert threatens Bible quiz
04/29/2008
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/108308.html

An Israeli anti-missionary group warned that a messianic Jew could win the international youth Bible quiz in Jerusalem.

Yad L'Ahim, a group of fervently Orthodox Jews who combat missionaries in Israel, said Tuesday that a 17-year-old Jerusalem girl who is among four contestants in next week's Independence Day quiz belongs to a secret Christian sect.
The daily newspaper Yediot Achronot identified the girl, but Yad L'Ahim's claims about her religious affiliations could not immediately be confirmed.
Yad L'Ahim's chairman, Rabbi Shlomo Dov Lipschitz, called for religious Jews to boycott the quiz if the girl is not disqualified.

"Missionaries will be greatly encouraged by the fact that a member of their messianic Christian community has a chance of being the world champion and will exploit this, God forbid, to increase their efforts to convert people in Israel and the Diaspora," he told the newspaper.

The Education Ministry, which oversees the quiz, said it had looked into the complaint about the contestant and decided not to act because she is considered Jewish.

The girl's father, whose first name was not given, told Yediot, "If anyone tries to hurt my daughter, I believe that God will pay them back."

(hattip: ziporah weiss)

Kentucky Legislature Honors Ami Ortiz

2008-04-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

You can find this on the Kentucky Legislature site here.

A RESOLUTION adjourning the 2008 Session of the Kentucky House of Representatives in honor of Ami Ortiz, a world-class example of how one teen and his family have demonstrated God's love and forgiveness in the face of murderous religious persecution.

WHEREAS, at 2:30 p.m. On Thursday, March 20, 2008, a 15 year-old Ami Ortiz, the son of a well-known pastor in Ariel, Israel, miraculously escaped death when he opened a traditional "Happy Purim" gift loaded with explosives and delivered to his home by terrorists intending to frighten members of the tiny Messianic community into fleeing their homes, city, and nation; and

WHEREAS, a March 23 Jerusalem Post article reported that Ami's "neck had an eight-inch gash like someone slit his throat. He has a ruptured lung. Doctors had to operate on his tongue. He has second-degree burns to his chest and arms, and there is no flesh on the thighs." The article further disclosed that doctors amputated two of Ami's toes and are working to prevent the loss of his arms and legs and to remove fragments of nails, bolts, screws, and metal shards from his entire body, including his right eye; and

WHEREAS, prior to the murderous bombing of his home, Ami Ortiz, the youngest of David and Leah Ortiz's six children, had also endured, along with other family members, years of harassment and intimidation associated with anti-missionary efforts to frighten the family by throwing a Molotov cocktail at the family's car, vandalizing their property, demonstrations, threats, and distribution of hurtful flyers and "wanted" posters plastered around their town with the personal information about the Ortiz family; and

WHEREAS, Pastor Ortiz's ministry to both Arab and Jewish believers resulted in death threats from the Hamas terrorist organization in the mid-1990's for preaching the Gospel to Palestinian Muslims; and

WHEREAS, the Ortiz family has also received similar threats from certain ultra-Orthodox Jews, some of whom have been involved in anti-missionary efforts to outlaw the free expression of Messianic faith in Israel; and

WHEREAS, the latest attempt to murder the Ortiz family marks an escalation of physical attacks on Messianic Jews in Israel, following the fire-bombing of a Messianic house of prayer in Jerusalem several months ago, and the ongoing attacks in Arad; and

WHEREAS, prior to the bombing of the Ortiz home, the Messianic community complained that Israel's media have often under-reported, downplayed, or reframed the significance of deadly attacks on Jewish believers; and

WHEREAS, the evening following the attack on the Ortiz family, Israel's Channel 10 news unwittingly justified such attacks with the statement, "Where there are missionaries there will be anti-missionaries;" and

WHEREAS, a recent article on Ami Ortiz in the March 25 issue of The Jerusalem Post quotes Howard Bass, head of a Messianic congregation in Beersheba as saying there has been "very little sympathy for our plight. We get the feeling that nobody in Israel is willing to take a strong stand against violent, anti-missionary activity;" and

WHEREAS, just before Christmas in 2005, Bass' congregation was attacked by hundreds of demonstrators who received the backing of the local rabbinic leadership, the Post said. Another Messianic believer, Edwin Beckford, is under house arrest. Last Fall, arsonists set fire to Jerusalem's Narkis Street Baptist Church, which sustained minor damage; and

WHEREAS, the government of Israel's history of reluctance to aggressively prosecute anti-missionary terrorists who have attacked Messianic Jews and their congregations in Beersheba and Arad with the same zeal that Israel prosecutes other terrorists dehumanizes a religious minority and emboldens terrorists to believe that Messianic Jews are fair game; and

WHEREAS, the police and courts in Israel may soon face pressure by certain ultra-orthodox religious politicians in Israel's Knesset and government ministries to "go easy" on the perpetrators of this attempted murder of the Ortiz family because some of these politicians believe missionaries to be at fault for being a "severe provocation;" and

WHEREAS, in the face of death, Ami Ortiz called upon the Messiah Yeshua, and has continued to set the right example for all believers by embracing the words of Yeshua: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you;"

NOW, THEREFORE,
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:
Section 1. The House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky hereby adjourns the 2008 Session of the Kentucky House of Representatives in honor of Ami Ortiz and his family for demonstrating the love and forgiveness of God in the face of murderous religious persecution.
Section 2. The Clerk of the House of Representatives shall send copies of this Resolution to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, 3 Kaplan Street, Hakirya, Jerusalem 91950; Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, Knesset, Kiryat Ben-Gurion, Jerusalem 91950; Mayor Ron Nachman, Ariel Municipality, Ariel City Hall, Ariel, Israel 40700; and Ambasador Sallai Meridor, 3514 International Drive N.W., Washington, DC 20008.

Is Chrsitianity Jewish?

2008-04-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

Sam Nadler featured on show by Michael Brown on the Jewishness of Christianity.

Miriam Nadler on Everyday Woman

2008-04-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

Miriam Nadler
explains the modern day relevance of Passover.

Simone Weil and Jewish Estrangement

2008-04-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

A film about Simone Weil is touring the South and coming to the Light Factory in Charlotte April 15 (next Tuesday). Who is Simone Weil? The film's promo identifies her as “one of the most compelling and contradictory spiritual thinkers of our times. A pacifist who fought in the Spanish Civil War, a former Marxist who discovered the value in religion, a Jew and a Christian who refused to be baptized.” From the parts of the interview with the filmmaker I listened to, the filmmaker who came to filmmaking through 'philosophy' was drawn to do a film on Weil because her 'outsider approach' to mystical Christianity produced a 'spirituality' that resonated with the 'practical' something-about-post-Marxist and liberalist thus-and-so... I admit that I got little lost as it got beyond my level. But I did find out that you pronounce her Simone Weil's last name "vey" (as in "oy-vey"), because that's how they roll in France.

Here is an overview on Weil's life by Jillian Becker. I found this much more insightful than the snippets or the interviews. In the part I am quoting from, the context is that the WWII Vichy regime in France had just denied her a teaching position because she was Jewish:

Rejection on the grounds that she was Jewish could not have come to her as a bolt from the blue, but as a bolt it struck her. She winced under it, smarted from its unfairness. Yet in the light of her temperament, her history, and her idealism, might one not fairly ask: why did she not see this hardship as a gift? Was this not her opportunity to come out strong? She who had for so long thought of herself as the champion of the oppressed, the comforter of the afflicted, who felt only for them and not for herself and desired so ardently to share in ther lot, to bear their anguish with them, was now almost inescapably one of them. She had the words to protest; she had the courage to endure; she had the intellect to perceive, analyze, understand, clarify the issue; and she had the will, a positive ardor, to suffer in the cause of suffering humanity. Compassion was her calling. So what might be expected of her now? At the very least, perhaps just to start with, she could publish a denunciation of the Vichy government and its craven collaboration with the Nazis in their policy of persecution and genocide. Had not the Jews a claim, at least as great as any other oppressed people if not at this moment greater, on those who routinely published protests against oppression and injustice? Now, would-be saint and martyr, now is your hour!

She did not seize it. She wrote to the government, and, yes, it was a letter of protest. She reasoned with them sharply against what she felt to be an injustice—one inflicted on Professor Simone Weil personally. Not one word did she say about the evil of anti-Semitism, not one word on behalf of the Jews who were being stripped of all they possessed, torn from their families, deported, imprisoned, starved, enslaved, tortured, and massacred. The letter was entirely and exclusively a complaint that the authorities had classed her as a Jew. She argued that to call her Jewish was an unfounded, unreasonable allegation.

I do not know the definition of the word, “Jew”; that subject was not included in my education. The Statute, it is true, defines a Jew as “a person who has three or more Jewish grandparents.” But this simply carries the difficulty two generations back. Does this word designate a religion? I have never been in a synagogue, and have never witnessed a Jewish ceremony. As for my grandparents—I remember that my paternal grandmother used to go to the synagogue, and I think I have heard that my paternal grandfather did likewise. On the other hand, I know definitely that both my maternal grandparents were free-thinkers. Thus if it is a matter of religion, it would appear that I have only two Jewish grandparents, and so am not a Jew according to the Statute. But perhaps the word designates a race? In that case, I have no reason to believe that I have any link, maternal or paternal, to the people who inhabited Palestine two thousand years ago… . I myself, who profess no religion and never have, have certainly inherited nothing from the Jewish religion… . I would say that if there were a religious tradition which I regard as my patrimony, it is the Catholic tradition. In short, mine is the Christian, French, Greek tradition. The Hebraic tradition is alien to me, and no Statute can make it otherwise.

Therein lies the problem: How could an encounter with the real, historical Yeshua not just stem from but even reinforce a total alienation from one’s Jewish identity? It seems to me that the tired “Jew/Christian” dichotomy by which the promo got my attention doesn‘t really give a contradiction at all. Rather, the contradiction lies in her refusal to recognize her own Jewishness, under the spell, not of the faith reflected by the Scriptures, but of a self-abasing Gnosticism.

Did she manifest or express some vital aspect of twentieth-century Zeitgeist that continues to haunt us? I think she did....she was, “at least by temperament,” a Cathar—Weil herself had declared that her religious beliefs were closest to these medieval dualistic heretics.

To her, as to them, the human soul was a moral battlefield where good and evil were locked in a time-long conflict. Like Gnostic thinkers, such as the Marcionites of the second century, she denounced the god of the Jews as a lesser and evil god, and sought to be reunited in spirit with the true but absent God, the God who is goodness itself, the Platonic ideal or essence of goodness.

Becker concludes, "If ... Simone Weil epitomizes the moral ideals of our time, then we are morally adrift in an era of darkness."

Pollard's Complexity

2008-01-23T11:38:00.000-08:00

by Matt Nadler

This article appeared in the Messianic Times under a different title.

To some, he was simply a loyal patriot caught in a political crossfire. To others, he was a bumbling and perhaps compromised idealist. Still others considered him a lying traitor. Regardless of one’s opinion, Jonathan Pollard has now been languishing in American prisons for over 20 years, with no end in sight. His charge was one count of passing classified information to Israel, an American ally. Now MK Zevulun Orlev wants to initiate a debate in the Israeli Knesset over Israel’s failures to get Pollard released.

Jonathan Jay Pollard (b. 1954) grew up a musical child prodigy in an affluent American Jewish family. From a young age he had a love for Israel, instilled by tradition, and affirmed by the Israel’s victory in the Six Day War. He studied philosophy and history at Stanford, and later law at Notre Dame. His dream, however, was to find a way to work for Israel - so much so he was known even to tell tales to his schoolmates that he already did work for Israel.

After Pollard was rejected for a job with the Mossad (Israeli Intelligence), he eventually landed a low-level position in the United States Intelligence, as part of their Naval Investigative Services, in the Anti-Terrorist Alert Center (ATAC). In the course of his work, Pollard came into information, incidental to his job, which he thought Israel should know, but wasn’t being told - for example, plans for an Iraqi weapons facility. A meeting with an Israeli government contact through mutual friend turned out to be his opportunity to spy, and during this time he eventually passed on many thousands of classified documents onto his handlers in the Israeli government.
Biographers of Pollard, like Wolf Blitzer (who wrote Territory of Lies), note that he was bound to get caught, but he expected in such an eventuality that he would be protected by Israel. When that day came in 1985, he did what his Israeli contacts had told him to do, speeding off with his wife to find asylum at the Israeli embassy in Washington. To their shock, they were forcefully turned away. He pled guilty as part of a plea bargain, with the assumption of leniency. The prosecutor recommended a life sentence, in violation of the plea bargain, and far over the median 2-4 years for those convicted of the same charge. His wife also served three years on the count of aiding him, being released on parole in March of 1990.

What happened? John Loftus, in his fascinating book The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People, speculated on the reasons behind his harsh sentence. On America’s part, there was indignation, and hence a desire to never see it happen again. Then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger wrote that it was difficult “to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by the defendant in view of the breadth, the critical importance to the United States and the high sensitivity of the information he sold to Israel” - this written in a brief the judge had read before deciding Pollard’s sentence. Many also suggest that Pollard’s defense team simply did not do its job. On the part of Israel, who did not come to Pollard’s aid, there was understandably much embarrassment that Pollard had been caught spying for them. The Mossad, who refused to hire him for any position because they considered him a “loose cannon,” “simply washed its hands and walked away.” Loftus even wrote that in the view of his sources, “Pollard screwed up their relationships with American intelligence and they hate him. The last thing the Mossad wants is for Pollard to be paroled, immigrate to Israel” - from which he has now received citizenship - “and write a book exposing even more American secrets.”

The situation is undoubtedly complex. Many have made the point that it is incorrect to consider Pollard a traitor, since by definition treason is must be aid given to enemies, not allies. The information Pollard delivered to Israel - including PLO headquarters in Tunisia, Syrian chemical warfare facilities, and Soviet Arms shipments - is undoubtedly important to a degree that is not always possible to ascertain from the outside. But one must also consider the plausible damage that his espionage caused to American security interests. Though the information itself was passed to an American ally - one who was entitled by a prior agreement to have information vital to its interests - it is impossible to know to what degree Pollard’s espionage may have compromised sources for American reconnaissance in countries not friendly to Israel.
Still, after 22 years, how long is long enough? Rabbi Russ Resnik, head of the UMJC, pointed out that while “there is much we do not know about this case,” nevertheless “it seems clear that Pollard has been imprisoned long enough and should be released.” “The Messianic Jewish community,” Rabbi Resnik noted, “should be concerned over the treatment that Jonathan Pollard has received, especially his disproportionate sentence and the Israeli government's lack of support for his release.” In light of the recent development with MK Orlev initiative, he affirmed that it was “appropriate for the Knesset to investigate the reasons for that lack of support.”

Review: Remnant Eleven - s/t

2007-09-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

A guitar plays its simple descending melody within a restless rumble of bass, drums, and warm keys, setting the stage for what is to come. Within a minute, we are seamlessly transported into the Jamaican dub of “By the Rivers of Babylon,” the Messianic sound-world envisioned by Remnant Eleven.

Indeed, it seems the unlikely culture of Jamaica has inspired much recent ‘Jewish music’ (cf. Matisyahu, Moshav). So is reggae and dub threatening to replace the more traditional templates of Eastern European folk, and, I don’t know, 'what have you' (by 'what have you' I mean 'Bar Mitzvah disco')? Is all the reverb soaking and rock-steady a passing craze or is it a welcome sea change? And, does it matter? Not really - it does not matter.

Remnant Eleven's bio says that they make “Messianic fusion.” In a sense, I suppose all Messianic music, if not all Jewish music, began as a kind of “fusion,” from Lamb in the early 70’s to today. However, in the case of this band – a group local to Philadelphia and members of Beth Yeshua congregation – the point of the label is that their excellence and energy make genre boundaries mostly irrelevant.

Anyway, back to the disc. “By the Rivers of Babylon” (which in an earlier recording was the single “Psalm 137,” which you can download here), brings out R11's collective musicality, led by Juan Argueta and Christopher Holden’s vocals. The following “B’yamim” suggests disco-funk, Carlos Santana, and even Shlomo Carlebach. The urgency comes through as they cry out in Hebrew and English: “again to be heard in Jerusalem/the voice of the bridegroom, the voice of the Bride/these are the days and now is the time.” That track almost seems to end too quickly, at less than three minutes.

A touch of the Caribbean-via-Matisyahu sound system then comes back raw on “Silver and Gold,” which in the bridge deftly climbs towards a wholly different movement, as if to reach the heights of a Mute Math (or we could say, for our elder's sake, the Police) except in a Middle Eastern motif, all revealing the soul of a band that wants to praise HaShem. “Poor Rebellious Soul” mines soul-jazz territories (and many other lands) for all their worth, suggesting something of the band’s native Philadelphia, as Christopher Holden’s crisp tenor comes correct in worship of Adonai. “Hava Nasurf,” which I imagine could have started as a joke, turns out to be pure gold: a surprising and almost flawlessly executed instrumental version of Hava Nagila, arranged by keyboardist Jason Rich. The track offers much to enjoy between Argueta and Holden’s guitars, Rich’s ecstatic organ, multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Salkind’s accordion (and bass, which I’m guessing he didn’t play at the same time), and Sam Shooster’s frenetic drumming – this is what one finds all through the CD. Segueing into the second half of the CD is the dynamic jazz-rock of “Beit,” culling some of its lyrics from Psalms. “Wine Cellar” gracefully matches Solomonic poetry to a felt blues not completely unlike that of John Mayer. Finally, closing out is the quite decent return of reggae with “Not Be Moved” and the jam blues of “Zeal.”

Overall, the sound has something of a live feel, with slight bumps on the twisty paths taken by the songs. This just adds character; in fact, practically every track here is proof of just what a remarkably strong debut this is. Indeed, as they continue to grow, focusing their energies and their song craft, they may be used by God to influence a whole generation for His glory. This seems to be in line with their vision: “We are all the sons of the promise, like the stars in the sky/ And though we’re scattered to so many nations/ God will raise us up high…”
Click here to buy from CD Baby:

(The writer of this review would like to mention that he has never met the dudes in the band, though he is hoping for lots of free t-shirts and stuff)

Meshichim and Nozrim

2007-03-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Israeli believers in this news clip stress that they are lo nozrim – which I had to translate somewhat imprecisely as "not Christians." The concern might arise with some Bible believers, and indeed has, that they are trying to hide or mask their true identity in Yeshua. In biblical terms, are they denying of themselves the New Covenant concept christianous (also translated in English as "Christians” or in the singluar, “Christian,” found in Acts 11:26 and 1 Pet. 4:16)? The concern is understandable, and so I must clarify that they are not denying that. Why do I say that?

It might help to understand that in contemporary Hebrew translations of Acts 11:26 and 1 Pet. 4:16 (for example, in Delitzch (DHNT) and the Modern Hebrew New Testament (MHNT)), the greek word christianous is translated as meshichim, i.e. "Messianics." It is not translated nozrim. So from the Hebrew it could read like this, "and the disciples were first called Messianics in Antioch," and "if one suffers as a Messianic." And really, “Meshichi” gets closer to what Bible believers mean by "Christian" than nozrim does, even though the word “nozrim” is used more often in Israel. By using the better as opposed to the more easily recognized Hebrew term, the Israeli believers are embracing the biblical terminology and concepts, so as to boldly testify about Yeshua in an authentically biblical way.

I was surprised when I looked in my pocket Hebrew-English dictionary under the word "Gentile," where the second Hebrew word for it, just after "goy," is "nozri" (singular of nozrim, pronounce the 'z' like the 'z' in 'pizza'). In other words, to a modern Hebrew speaker, saying “nozri” can basically be another way of saying "Gentile." Now, we should drop any prejudices we might have about the word "Gentile"; the fact is that God loves the Gentiles (the nations) and has blessed them through the Jewish Messiah (Gen 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; Luke 2:32; Acts 11:18; 13:46; Rom. 11:13). Moreover, the Gentiles, together with the Jewish people, are essential to the body of Christ from a biblical perspective, as part of the commonwealth of Israel (Eph 2:11-22). But the point that this shows is that the word nozri stands for a foreign religion, which faith in Yeshua was never meant to be for a Jewish perspective (Luke 1:54-55, John 4:22). Indeed, one cannot even have the commonwealth of Israel (to be including the Gentiles), if you were to take Israel out of the picture. So the believers there choose to explicitly express that they are a part of the biblically Jewish, Israeli-born faith in the Messiah of Israel. (This is something that all believers, Jew and Gentile, should see as an imperative to express - Rom 1:16; 11:11).

The Hebrew phrase yehudim meshichim - Messianic Jews - has been around in the land as long as Israel, and even before the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. But the term was unknown to most Israelis until recently, only because Jewish believers in Jesus have been few in number there. Naturally, all these terminology issues (just like the symbolism of putting up the mezuza, and not a crucifix) fascinate the media in Israel, because it shows that this group simply cannot fit into a preconceived box. Thus, the media focused on that aspect of the interviews and footage.

So, to summarize:

--The term for believers in Yeshua found in Israeli Bibles is usually Meshichim.

--Believers usually reject the term Nozrim, because, while it may be the most common term for "Christian," it also evokes a non-Jewish religious institution that has nothing to do with the Messiah or people of Israel.

--Deriving from the biblical terminology, in general they call themselves Yehudim Meshichim, in parallel to Jewish believers worldwide who call themselves 'Messianic Jews'.

Now, I don't mean to imply that semantics is or should be a 'really big deal' for believers in Israel. However, it was a 'big deal' for the media there, because the different terms/symbols was intriguing in itself, and likewise it can be for Gentile believers outside Israel, because of the attachment to the label "Christian."

R. Deri on Messianic Jews: "the spiritual danger that threatens us today more than ever"

2007-03-01T12:31:00.000-08:00

I received the following from Howard Bass, a pastor in Beersheva, who wisely urges that the following be made known:

This case is not against Israel or against the Jewish people. It is not to be used in any way to foment or promote anti-Israel or anti-Jewish actions or reactions. It is already known through the Scriptures that Israel is presently opposed to the good news of God, so we are not out to make them an enemy. Nor is our legal action intended to be used by any other minority or religious groups in Israel to encourage or affirm anti-Israel/Jewish sentiment. For the sake of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, Israel and her people are beloved by God the Father for His honor and glory, and for the honor and glory of His Son.

I share Howard's concern and sentiment, and hope that nothing more needs to be said on that.

THE RABBINATE AGAINST "THE MESSIANICS"
22 Feb 07, Sheva Magazine, translated from Hebrew

The Chief Rabbinic Council for Israel decided in its meeting last Monday (20 February) to establish a special committee for "War Against the Mission Throughout the Country."

The initiator of the matter, the Chief Rabbi of Beer Sheva and a member of the Council, the Rabbi Yehuda Deri, notes that he, [along with] Rabbi Simcha Ha-Cohen, the Chief Rabbi of Rehovot, and Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, the Chief Rabbi of Ra'anana and former Chairman of the Shas movement and Minister of the Interior, will work on the matter, within the framework of the Committee, by holding meetings with Members of Parliament (Knesset), acting to change the law regarding missionary work, cooperating with rabbis in the battle of this matter, and working with the police in enforcing the existing law, which forbids changing [of one's] religion. Rabbi Deri noted in the meeting of the Council that activities of the sect "the Messianic Jews," in Beer Sheva in particular and in the country generally, is "the spiritual danger that threatens us today more than ever", and presented different instances of activities of members of the sect throughout the country, in which he emphasized the fact that the Chief Rabbinate has not yet expressed its opinion on the matter. Among other things, the Rabbi told about the baptism of 15 Jews on one Sabbath (Saturday) about two months ago at [an Exhibition Hall] in Tel Aviv.

The Chief Rabbinic Council discussed the issue of the filing of another lawsuit in the Magistrate's Court in Beer Sheva against Rabbi Deri by persons of the sect, this time for [financial] compensation, for offenses against activities of "the Messianic Jews" during a mass demonstration led by the Rabbi about one year ago in which there was violence. Rabbi Deri reported at that time to Sheva [newspaper] that a few hotheads arrived at the demonstration site before him and engaged in violent acts, which were stopped immediately by him. The Rabbi is certain that the lawsuit is "a stepping up and an opening of a frontline war, which is intended only to frighten him and to restrict his steps in his uncompromising battle unprecedented in its scope against the sect's activities."

By the way, Rabbi Deri mentions with praise the success of his latest initiative to enforce the decision of the local rabbinate, according to which about 300 restaurants in the city that enjoy the supervision of the rabbinate will use only worm-free vegetables, except for cabbage. In his words, "Not one of the business owners had to give up his kosher license in the follow-up to apply the decision, which is an increase of ten degrees in the field of food acceptability. Other cities in the country can only be jealous of this outstanding precedent."

Yeshua, High Star

2007-02-21T10:37:00.000-08:00

News segment on Messianic Jews and their situation in Israel. The outlet is as mainstream Israeli as it gets, yet the treatment was informative and reasonably sympathetic.

*********

YESHUA HIGH STAR
(Yeshua Kochav Elyon)

Opening song lyrics: "With all my heart I will praise you…"

Mom: Who wants to pray?

Girl: I will.

Mom: Good.

Girl: Our Father, Who is in heaven,
Thank you for this wonderful day that you have given us.
Thank you for the rain that came down from heaven.
Bless all the people that are traveling by car, that nothing should happen to them,
In the name of Yeshua the Messiah. Amen.

Family: Amen.

The Ronen family begins dinner in their home in moshav (settlement) Yad HaShmona.
They are Israelis, sons of Israelis, properly Jews according to the halakha (Jewish law),
that believe in Yeshu – Yeshua, as they strictly call him.

Ayelet Ronen: It is a contradiction until one starts to check …I also was brought up in it, but somehow expanded in faith. And what we believe so much is this: that Yeshua is Jewish, from our own, He is Israeli. This was settled for me – settled for me well – and I understood that this is a living and true thing.

Like the Ronen family, residents of the moshav Yad HaShmona believe in Yeshu. They call themselves hayehudim hameshichim ("the Messianic Jews"). They stressed again and again that they are not nozrim ("Christians").

Ayelet: There isn't any connection to the Christian establishment (memsad hanozrim). We are Jews in every sense. We are Israelis. This is as sure as can be. What is more, we also have no connection to our religious establishment in the land.

Daniel Ronen: "Nozri"("Christian") puts you at once in a religious box that I don't belong in. I belong to a faith in Yeshua the Messiah.

In the spirit of these words, in Yad Shmonah there are no Christian symbols – not in the private homes, nor in the prayer house.

--Hi, Tzuri

--Alon

--Shall we enter the house?

--Please.

But, as in the house belonging to the settlement secretary, Tzuriel bar David, so also in the other houses, obvious Jewish symbols especially stand out.

--What catches my eye…

Tzuri: Yes?

--…is that you have a mezuza.

Tzuri: Correct. In the end, it is perhaps difficult to understand, but from our point of view we are Jews in every sense. This is correct that we … among our people, there are some that dismiss this completely. But I - all of my foundation is the Tanakh, all of my foundation is God, and the prophecies, and the words. This is what I am striving for. This is what I believe. And I have no – how do you say… contradiction with these things, also with these symbols.

--As learned, all the things that are dealt with in the Tanakh…for example, brit milah, applies to you as well.

Tzuri: Of course. Of course.

--And your children – you have a son, correct?

Tzuri: Correct.

--So he is also circumcised, I am guessing.

Tzuri: Correct.

--So wait a sec, how did this happen? What, you called a mohel?

Tzuri: Yeah.

--Really?

Tzuri: Yeah.

--And the mohel, this wasn't any problem for him?

Tzuri: He took a lot of money, but no, it wasn't a problem…

[laughter]

(family sings, "I will bless the Lord at all times…")

The Messianic Jews at once treat the Tanakh and the New Covenant as holy, and above all they believe that Yeshu is the Son of God and Messiah.

("…always I will praise him with my mouth")

For decades, congregations like these have been realized in many places in Israel, usually in secrecy, sometimes even concealment.

The environment often finds it difficult to digest them. Even the friends in school cause hostility.

Achinoam Ronen: Every time that they would pass by us, they would say to us, "Ya Nozrim!" and all sorts of things like these…

Ariel: But since we are not exactly Nozrim, they continually can come upon us, call us "sons of whores" – this name is the threatening curse in our case.

Yonaton Bar-David: I remember from spring that a company from the towns here, someone came out that was talking with me, and asked me if I believed in "Yeshu." I said, "no." But then after this I persuaded myself – I said to him: "I don't believe in Yeshu; I believe in Yeshua."

Ayelet encountered in her time additional requests. .

Ayelet: This was exactly the period of the first Gulf War, and I was in an officer's course for the last summoning, fifth officer's class, exactly as the summoning of the final stage. Correct, they took me from the field security course for trusting in the truth. And I was terribly hurt, because my father and all my aunts and uncles are officers in the IDF, and we fought in the wars, and suddenly a thing like this happens.

Since then, the establishment, in the foundation of the establishment, changed its stand.

(pointing to photo) Tzuriel: This is in fact Yonaton's reserve training…and, I don't know…this is a troop…

Yonaton: Yes, my troop…

Tzuriel: If you consider the people here from the moshav, our family, everyone: they are all combat soldiers, if not reconnaissance. So everyone always will try to give what he can get where he can. And also you examined from Tanakh itself and our writings, the New Covenant and everything. We are required to be faithful to the state, and to serve her.

Tzuri serves in a special unit; Yonaton is a deputy commander of a paratrooper division. The two of them participated in the most difficult combat in the second Lebanon war.

But of course, this does not all convince groups of Haredim that fight them in a war of annihilation.

Man: This way they pass small children to Christianity! They give them pretty clothes, and bread, and food, and after this say to them: "Come, bow down to Yoshke, the bastard!"

This is the commonality that Gur Chassidim in Arad organized against the local congregation.

Man: Here Rebecca Prei came from a Haredi family, they kidnapped her, made her Christian…
2nd man: They kidnap children and change them to Christianity. Stay far away from them!

But when the faith blazes, there isn't anything that will stop the phenomenon. In the latest years there is rumored growth about the numbers of congregations of the Messianic Jews. They speak of at least about 15 congregations in Jerusalem alone. Even in this region, bordering the haredi neighborhood, several congregations of Messianic Jews are active.

Leader: Come, I will ask you again: who came…ready to praise the Lord?

(song: "My eyes see your salvation, the banner of your people Israel, my eyes see your salvation, Yeshua!")

This congregation "Shemen Sason," one active in the center of Jerusalem, in contrast to all the other congregations that face them, agreed to be exposed on film. This congregation has grown in two years from 60 believers to about 200. Many of the new members are youth, children of the land, a part of them from traditional homes.

--Your mother's family do not know…grandfather and grandmother? Are they in contact with you or…

Dana: Grandmother, yes, despite it being very very hard for her. My grandfather does not know.

--He does not know.

Dana: My mom does not want him to know.

Yaron: My mom said to me: "Maybe do not try to stand out in the pictures" and so on, "They know me; they know who I am." (smiling wide)

The perplexity of the parents is not considered to be against the faith, which blazes on its own.

Person praying: – Lord, we thank you that you are a great God.

Person 2: Amen.

Person 1: That you are a living God and true God, Lord.

person 3: You are so beautiful, my beloved, most wonderful. We love you so much, Lord,

Person 1: Amen.

Praise is a central foundation in the place of the Meshichim. Everyone prays as he feels or does not feel. There is no prayer text required.

We request from you Lord, that you give wisdom and not partiality, that you will give to our leaders wisdom. Fill the sea of Galilee, we ask.

(singing: in morning and in evening, in joy and in sadness, I will praise you Lord continually...)

It is important for them not to be accused of "missionary activity," but it is also important that their truth is made known.

Tzuri: I say, if I know this, and I believe in this, why don't other people at least hear about this, in order to be competent to choose? The choice is theirs. I am not… my responsibility is that they hear.

(praise song)

They want us to know that their faith makes them fit for this land, that there isn't a contradiction according to their faith between the New Covenant and the Tanakh; to the contrary, that it is possible to pray to Yeshu (Yeshua, in their tongue), and in parallel, to receive the Shabbat as they have received her in millions of Jewish homes, in the wide spaces of the world.

(Song: Shalom Aleichem)

Writer: Shlomo Raz

Daniel Pipes at UC-Irvine

2007-02-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

The following presentation by Daniel Pipes is worth watching for two reasons. First, it gives excellent insight into the topic of Israel's threatened existence. Second, the events of the talk itself manage to illustrate how those threats are supported in the university.

Here is the 54 minute talk, from beginning to end. The disruption begins at 15:09, and the talk resumes at 17:25.

This shorter video gives a different perspective of the night. First, there is 5:42 minutes of Pipes, then the disruption, and then the videotaper follows the disrupters outside as they continue. At 12:00, we hear the leader say, "it's just a matter of time before the State of Israel will be wiped off the face of the map," in response to which the crowd - which as Pipes noted was "self-exiled, standing in the dark and the cold" - yells "Allahu akhbar."
Meanwhile, those who remained in the auditorium chanted "Am Yisrael Chai." Most definitely.

Reviews of Misquoting Jesus

2007-01-05T11:41:00.000-08:00

Last year to now is like 1920 to 1950. Still this book is popular, and as it occurred to me that I meant to send a friend these links, I might as well share them with the world.

Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus is meant to be an lay introduction to textual criticism, and it was quite popular. It also suffers from bias. This is not at all surprising to me. I took his Introduction to New Testament while at UNC-Chapel Hill. Even to a freshman like myself, it was obvious how opinions were being shaped by the bias of a professor.

Daniel Wallace is an accomplished scholar in the areas that Ehrman wrote on. As I read it a month or so ago in a journal, I thought, it would be cool if this was on the internet. So it is.

While we are at it, here is one by another well-renowned scholar and UNC alum and blogger Ben Witherington. Enjoy.

Something to think about.

2006-08-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

There is an ethical problem at the root of our philosophical difficulties; for men are most anxious to find truth, but very reluctant to accept it. We do not like to be cornered by evidence, and even when truth is there, in its impersonal and commanding objectivity, our greatest difficulty remains; it is for me to bow to it in spite of the fact that it is not exclusively mine, for you to accept it thought it cannot be exclusively yours. In short, finding out truth is not so hard; what is hard is not to run away from truth once we have found it. When it is not "yes but", our "yes" is often enough a "yes, and"; it applies much less to what we have just been told than to what we are about to say. The greatest among philosophers are those who do not flinch in the presence of truth, but welcome it with the simple words: yes, Amen.
-- Etienne Gilson, Historian of Philosophy

In the above quote, I think that one could easily replace "theological" or "political" (etc.) for "philosophical."

Oh, and, we're back online with blogs.

Holiday teachings

2005-10-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

I thought I would reinagurate our blogging with some fall feast links. Learn why sacrifices don't come cheap here. Be encouraged for the upcoming Feast of Tabernacles. And while we are at it, Happy New Year!

Ten Questions about Messianic Identity

2005-06-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

I often recieve questions about my identity. Here are some.

1. What is a Messianic Jew?

A Messianic Jew is a Jew who believes that Jesus (henceforth Yeshua) is the Messiah.

2. Is that like a Christian?

Um...I guess it would be *like* that, yes.

3. So you're not Jewish anymore.

That's a declarative sentence. What shall I do now.

4. Oops. So how are you still Jewish, then?

Because belief in Yeshua does not remove Jewish identity, and we happen to think its the most Jewish thing you can do. He is the Jewish Messiah.

5. How do other Jews who don't believe in this Yeshua feel about you guys?

For the most part, not so well. The Orthodox consider us 'meshumdim', or traitors, and many more think we have abandoned the true Jewish faith, deceptively dressing up Christianity as a valid Jewish option, whereas they argue that its anything but. Some more 'liberal' Jews are willing to tolerate us, some even engaging in dialogue. But that's more an exception to the rule.

6. Aren't they right? About you being traitors and decievers and all that?

No. We have been rejected by the mainstream Jewish community, to be certain. Also, it is true that they do *feel* betrayed by us. But the feelings of the majority do not determine truth. We serve in the Israeli army (for those who live in Israel), celebrate the Jewish feasts, circumcise our sons, and want to see our children grow up Jewish.

7. Yeah, but they will be fake Jews.

You're doing it again.

8. Right. Sorry. Won't they just be fake Jews?

No. For Messianics, if your mother or father is Jewish, you're a real Jew (Orthodox and Conservative Jews go by the mother only; Messianics and Reform go by either parent). You can hide, pretend it isn't there, but it won't change the facts. Belief in Jesus doesn't alter it either.

9. You are just equivocating on the word "Jew," right? Everytime we ask, we mean religiously, and when you answer you go by ethnicity. Isn't that illogical?

There might have been equivocation, so let's fix that now. Ethnically, a Jew is defined according to the above. Religiously, there is a debate. Messianics think that Yeshua's claims to be the Messiah actually correspond to the facts--for Jews and everyone else. Jews who don't believe in 'that man' obviously differ on this point. So the question is whether what the New Covenant (also called the New Testament) says about Yeshua is true. If it is, Messianic Jews are Jewish religiously. If it isn't, then they aren't. But, ethnically, they would be Jewish in either case.

So, in the end, it is those who would say that Messianic Jews somehow *can't* be Jewish who are confusing you. Either they mean we cannot be Jewish religiously (and so avoid the real issue behind the claim, which is whether or not Yeshua actually is the Messiah), or they mean we are no longer Jewish ethnically (in which case their claim is wrong).

10. What's your problem? Why do you waste your time trying to say you're Jewish?

Because its a fact, and we seek to speak the truth. Moreover, we find what the Bible says about God's love and promises toward the Jewish people to be compelling. Therefore, it is part of an authentic testimony for Jewish believers to maintain their identity in Yeshua.

Messianic Jews persecuted in Israel

2005-06-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

The following article appeared in the largest Hebrew newspaper in Israel, Yediot Acharonot. Translated by Maoz Israel with permission.

Caleb Myers (see interview below) is representing our case in Jerusalem (whereas we were unjustly harrased for our faith by the Ministry of Interior--in my case, deported; in my father's case, attempted and official deportation, though he was let in a day later.) We praise God for this article--illustrating the unique difficulties of Jewish democracy trying to understand its religious identity. Click here.

Is jury duty an absolute?

2005-05-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

I had jury duty, and got called for a real trial. Assault with a deadly weapon, two counts. One isn’t allowed to “weigh” the evidence of the case until after the trial is over. So during the downtime, we the jury make conversation.

About what, you may ask? Favorite TV shows are an important component, and that can maintain interest for a few minutes. Someone had the idea to go around and say what we did for a living. Real estate agents, bouncers, construction workers, homemakers. After things became more familial, it came out that I was writing a paper on absolute truth. This was because there was a lull in the conversation, and I said,

“So I am writing this paper on absolute truth, and its really interesting to me how the courts depend on the concept…” or something equivalent in psychotic expectations to communally philosophize.

One man bit, “what is absolute truth?”

I responded, quoting another, “Absolute truth is what is true for all persons, places, and times.”

Our bouncer leaned back in his chair and mused, “well, that doesn’t exist at my house.”

Fighting the urge to quibble, I only replied, “but might it exist nonetheless?” And things moved on to the current state of the home-buying market.

Full-on epistemological relativism--the belief that differing determinations of the truth of a proposition cannot be arbitrated between two or more standards, leading to a proposition that can only be "true-for-you"--is too easy a target. I do not want merely to bring up the classic charges of self-refutation (undermines the very notion of rightness) and incoherence (since some beliefs are necessarily false) Both charges have led to convictions since Plato, and are there on record when needed. So let's just clarify its reasonable alternative.

There really is only one *reasonable* alternative, and it’s rather vast. Yet, we so often find ourselves, both as ordinary humans and as ivory-tower drive shafts, between two grossly unreflective and practically brainwashed options, neither of which see the vast middle where all we rightfully belong. In this case, it is between full-on relativism and “vulgar” absolutism, as some of the technicians called it. I define “vulgar” absolutism as an embracing of fact-certainty, dogmatism, incorrigibility, or some other unlikable quality that drives people away to a paint-by-numbers critique of a non-existent worldview. While both are unedible to the soul's palette, when faced with the Nazi/Communist-either/or, even the thinking person might go with the path of least popular resistance--its all relative.

Absolutism, as I see it (in its “graded” or non-vulgar sense), is really a call to inquiry. All it requires is an object of inquiry, that is, something about which to inquire. If there is something there (and not just in there, in your head), then that’s a very good start. We have something to talk about. We can ask questions like “what is it?” and “how did we know that?” We may revise our answers later, for a variety of good reasons. We may even revise our reasons, and the criteria for what counts as reasons.

Regarding the object, we still face several immediate problems, clear to even a lugnut like myself. For example, how is it that the object itself is seen, when it is seen through subjective concepts, perspectives, thoughts, and so on?

But that’s really the point. They are problems. Fun problems. As problems, they are difficult and maybe even interesting for an absolutist. But for someone who has accepted an full-on relativism, an easy and unconvincing answer has already been put forth. We don’t have any real public object. In the words of Plato's well-intentioned student who recieved needed correction, "knowledge is perception." You will just think whatever you happen to think (as coddled by thoughts, concepts, frameworks, and worlds-within-worlds-within-worlds-within-worlds). The relativist disputes the existence of public criteria for evaluating the truth of statements that can be made about the object. The absolutist doesn’t dispute that, because to dispute that is to render the possibility of disputation meaningless.

So, can we talk? Is there really something to talk about? We have reached a verdict, your honor.

listening and not listening

2005-05-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

I was looking today at Isaiah 1:2, in the context of the first two chapters.

Is. 1:2 Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth;
For the LORD speaks,