Ezekiel versus the Church by Tzvi Jacobson

Posted on March 27, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

Ezekiel versus the Church by Tzvi Jacobson

There was a proverb that was popular among some of the Jewish people that parallels the Christian doctrine of the Atonement of Jesus. In other words, Christianity states that Jesus died to pay a penalty for the sins of the world. For further clarification and to make it more personal; I sin and Jesus pays the penalty for me. That would be convenient and nice if true, but it just isn’t.

 

Now the proverb that found its way among the Jewish people is found in the prophecy of Ezekiel Chapter 18 verses 1-4.

 

“The word of the LORD came to me; What do you mean by quoting this proverb upon the soil of Israel, “Parents eat sour grapes, and their children’s teeth are blunted”? As I live – declares the Lord God- this proverb shall no longer be current among you in Israel. Consider, all lives are mine; the life of the parent and the life of the child are both Mine. The person who sins, only he shall die.”

 

In this Chapter, (and I suggest you read it through) God is saying that when a parent sins he will die in that sin. If his child learns from this and lives a righteous life, the child will not suffer death. Yet if the sinning parent or child repents of his sins and does what God commands he shall live. Just as if a righteous person who turns from living a godly life and does those things God says ought not to be done, that person will not live. All his previous righteousness will not be remembered when his final days are lived out in an ungodly manner.

 

Now what has this to do with Christianity? Everything!

 

  1. The central doctrine of Christianity is that Jesus one of the many sons of Israel died in the stead of all the fathers of Israel that went before him. Ezekiel 18 isn’t just referring to the relationship between my father and myself. It is vehemently opposed to one paying the penalty for another. In God’s mind that is not justice, nor righteous.
  2. Paying God a penalty for my sin??? God says that this is disgusting.

God states in Isaiah 43:22-25

 

 

“But you have not worshipped me, O Jacob, That you should be weary of me, O Israel. You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings, Nor honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with meal offerings, not wearied you with frankincense. You have not brought me fragrant reed with money, nor sated me with the fat of your sacrifices. Instead you have burdened me with your sins, You have wearied me with your iniquities. It is I, who-for my own sake –Wipe your transgressions away, and remember your sins no more.”

 

Read this again, and again, for it is the word and mind of God himself. Do you find anything even resembling the sacrifices and offerings as payment? The sacrifices were offered 1. to thank God, 2. to provide food for the Priesthood. 3. for us to have a communal feast in God’s presence. 4. to acknowledge sin and guilt before God. God doesn’t require payment.

 

Certainly on the basis of Ezekiel chapter 18 and repeated in chapter 33 we can conclude that nobody can die for your sins.

 

  1. Can anything be more noxious as to insinuate that God himself died because of my sins? Yet this is also included in the doctrine of Atonement believed by almost all Christianity. Though the New Testament is quite clear that Jesus didn’t consider himself God. John 20:17

 

“Go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to MY GOD, AND YOUR GOD”

 

Just who was Jesus speaking of when he referred to his GOD? In John Chapter 17 verse 3 Jesus calls the Father; “The Only True God”.

Thus Christianity that considers Jesus divine has created a new god, not even the God Jesus himself worshipped, and the one True God that all Israel acknowledges. Ezekiel once again; THIS PROVERB SHALL NO LONGER BE CURRENT AMONG YOU IN ISRAEL. Let all who have become enamored with this Christian doctrine hear what God says.

 

Tsvi Jacobson

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Posted in Atonement, Tzvi Jacobson | 7 Comments

This is my Beloved

Posted on March 27, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

This is my Beloved

 

“I shall take you to Me for a nation and I shall be to you for a God.” (Exodus 6:7)

 

Entering into a covenantal relationship with God changes you. You become a different nation. What is beautiful to other nations is not beautiful to you and what is happiness for other nations is not happiness for you. Not only does your outlook change but your heart and soul need to change.

 

Other nations exert themselves in a never ending effort to achieve security and prosperity. You are different. You learn to disregard that which others fear and feel secure in God’s embrace. You find joy and happiness in bringing God’s commandments to fruition and that is your entire focus.

 

As a nation that is bound to God in a covenantal relationship you have a different responsibility than do other nations. You are not responsible for the physical survival of your nation; that is God’s responsibility. Your responsibility is to maintain your end of the covenantal relationship and to pass on to your children that which you received from your parents.

 

At the time of the exodus God removed us from the family of nations. He removed us from the attitudes and mentality that is common to the nations and He made us a nation unto Himself.

 

Have we always lived up to the calling of being a nation apart? Not quite. But there have always been righteous men and women in our midst who set the example for us. And the core of the covenant has always stayed with us just as God promised (Isaiah 59:21).

 

If you want to understand why the Jewish people have taken a certain stance you need to see the world from the eyes of a nation who stands in a covenant relationship with God. You need to experience the joy of standing before the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth in communal prayer together with the full stature of the nation of Israel with your heart, both collective and individual, open to no one but Him. And then perhaps you will realize how jarring it sounds when someone taps you on the shoulder and tells you that you can’t approach your Divine Covenantal Partner without first submitting to someone else, and then to top it all off, he calls his message “good news.”

 

In order to understand the Jewish people you need to experience the connection to God inherent in bringing one of His commandments to fruition. Feel the closeness to God, the security in God, the love of God and the comfort of His embrace that is inherent in fulfilling His command. And then try to listen to someone tell you that the path of the Law is hypocritical, legalistic, arrogant and ungodly; all of this under the slogan “if you would have believed Moses you would believe me.”

 

To see things from the eyes of the Jew you need to try to put your heart into the Jew’s relationship with God. Try to feel the pure joy of knowing that your yearning heart is in the hand of the One who created it. Try to imagine the elation of being loved by the Master of the universe, not only as a human being, but as a member of a nation that He chose unto Himself. And then try to hear someone tell you that you should enter into a more “fulfilling” relationship then the one you enjoy now.

 

You don’t need to go through these exercises in order to know that Christianity is false. If that is all you want to know you could take the path of a police officer who wrote to me: “… something wasn’t adding up. I was a cop for 25 years so I started investigating it, using the same methods I did on the PD. The evidence for Christianity is scant at best, the majority being hearsay or fabricated that would never be allowed in a court of law.”

 

But if you want to see the matter from the perspective of the Jew you need to try to put your heart together with ours.

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Posted in General | 27 Comments

The Land of Our Ancestors

Posted on March 19, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

The Land of Our Ancestors

 

 

“And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.” (1Kings 21:1-3)

Naboth’s response to Ahab was not merely a mundane refusal to sell a piece of property; it was a lesson about life.

You see, Ahab had lead Israel into idolatry. He encouraged his people to give their hearts in devotion to the forces of nature that were seen as deities by the surrounding nations. In his rejection of Ahab’s offer to buy his vineyard Naboth packaged a rebuke against the idolatrous ways of the evil king. A sellout of one’s ancestral lands to satisfy the hungry greed of an arrogant monarch compares to the act of idolatry in three different ways. The strong language of Naboth’s response would lead us to believe that he had at least one of these ideas in mind if not all of them.

The loyalty that one should feel toward his own family would stand in the way of such a sale. How could I give away something that was meant so much to my parents? How could I give away the very piece of land that my ancestors so faithfully preserved just so that I should inherit it?

The relationship that Israel shares with God is the most precious possession of the nation. Our ancestors literally gave their lives so that we can inherit this gift. How can one callously throw this gift overboard just to satisfy the avarice of a deity that our fathers never knew?

We understand the desire of a greedy person to acquire more land. Such a desire is rooted in a lack of satisfaction with one’s own station in life and reflects a desperate desire to amass more wealth and more power. We recognize such a desire in our own hearts and we identify it as evil. Selling one’s land to satisfy this desire is an acceptance of the fact that this desire has a legitimate role to play in human society. The refusal to acquiesce to such a desire reflects a protest against greed. A Godly person would want to see such desires eradicated from the hearts of men and will do all in his power to remove greed and avarice from the realm of human activity.

We can also understand the desire of a finite existence to amass unto itself the adulation of hearts that do not belong to it. It is the same hunger for power and honor that moves the greedy person to amass material property. Submitting to such a desire is an acceptance and an approval of greed and gluttony.

Worship of God has nothing to do with greed and gluttony. God is the Creator of all and as such everything belongs to Him already including our own hearts. Devotion to God is simply the acknowledgment of a truth that exists already. It is not giving to one what belongs to another.

Finally, when someone sells his ancestral land he is showing that he does not feel secure with the station allotted to him by God. Such a person feels a need to go to a place where God did not put him in order to find himself. One who lives with trust and security in God will find all of their needs met precisely in the place that God placed them and will not find it necessary to travel beyond those boundaries.

The same lack of trust in God that leads to abandonment of one’s true station in life leads also to idolatry. People turn to idols when they feel insecure with the One that called them into existence to begin with. If people would recognize that we have everything with our Creator they would never turn to a fellow subject of God to find security.

Naboth’s message to Ahab rings true today as it did then. If you are a Jew, don’t throw away your most precious inheritance. No human being should give in to the desire of another person for adulation and worship. And every human being can be sure that the One who created us all can amply provide for all of our needs without the services of one of His subjects.

There is no reason to give your heart to anyone aside from the One who called it into existence to begin with.

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Posted in The Ultimate Truth | 13 Comments

And EVERYTHING That Is In It – by Annelise

Posted on March 17, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

And EVERYTHING That Is In It – by Annelise

 

In the five books of Torah, we see that God revealed something to Israel that they would need to carry throughout their generations. Part of this is summed up in the Shema: that the Creator alone is the God whom they must offer their souls in worship and trust towards. It is revealed even in the opening verse of Genesis chapter 1: “In the beginning, God created…” There was no war between many gods to form the earth. We don’t just exist on our own either; we can’t take our existence for granted. All reality is dependent on God, a miracle formed by one cause alone. The Jews have held this message in their hearts and teachings throughout history.

 

A second big element of this revelation is also seen clearly in the Bible’s first chapter. The testimony of the Jew is that everything that ever has been, or is, or will be in the heavens above and in the earth below owes its existence to God.

 

Isaiah 40 talks a lot about this message. It begins by showing how God comes very close to His people like a mighty king and a gentle shepherd. That he is the power above all natural powers, and no one can teach Him wisdom or justice. Then it contrasts Him with an idol that people make out of a piece of wood. The words here are full of meaning: “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in… To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name… The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.”

 

The focus here is not that we should only worship God, but still need to figure out who or what we could worship as God incarnate. The point is that every single end of the earth is, by definition, created. When our souls look to God, our eyes must be turned away from all things and all imagination. That is an integral part of the Jewish testimony. When a Christian says that the idea of ‘multiplicity in God’ can be harmonised with the wording of the Shema, we believe they aren’t giving enough consideration to the caution implied in that verse. But we have an even clearer objection. They are ignoring an important Jewish message besides the Shema, which is the knowledge that every single thing within the heavens and earth should be seen without exception as a subject of the King of Kings. The Jewish scriptures teach us not only how to relate with God, but how to relate with everything around us.

 

Many other verses come back, over and over, to the same theme. These often mention the heavens and earth as parallel images, to illustrate the vast and incricate concept of ‘everything, without exception.’ Here are some examples of the Hebrew scriptures’ rich story about our world. All things around us, in every time and place, declare the absolute nearness of God on whom they rest, to exist.

 

Deuteronomy 10:14 – “Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.”

Joshua 2:11 – “And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.”

1 Chronicles 29:10-11 – “Therefore David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly. And David said: “Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.”

Nehemiah 9:6 – “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”

Psalm 8:1 – “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.”

 

Psalm 89:11-12 – “The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them. The north and the south, you have created them; Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name.”

Psalm 148 (the whole psalm sings about this) :11-13 – “Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and maidens together, old men and children! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven.”

 

Isaiah 42:5-6 – “Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it: “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations…”

Isaiah 44:23-24 – “Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will display His beauty in Israel. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: ‘I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself…'”

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Annelise, The Ultimate Truth | 4 Comments

Not to Bow

Posted on March 12, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

Not to Bow

 

“And all the servants of the King that were in the gate of the King kneeled and bowed to Haman but Mordechai would not kneel nor would he bow” (Esther 3:2)

Mordechai’s refusal to bow infuriated Haman. It infuriated him to the degree that he was moved to destroy all of Mordechai’s people.

It seems that the Jewish refusal to bow does not sit well with God’s enemies. These people see the Jewish refusal to bow as legalistic, arrogant, and self-centered. Why can’t you be like everyone else? Everyone else is inspired by the wealth of Haman, by the power of Caesar or by the mystery of Jesus. Why does the Jew have to stand apart?

This is the question that fueled the fires of hate for generations. This question was in the mind of the Crusaders, the Inquisitors and the propagandists who inspired their crimes. They see the Jewish refusal to bend to the allures of finite existence as a smug disdain for the rest of humanity. Everyone else sees the reason that we need to bend and kneel to Jesus, why can’t the Jew just join us?

But nothing could be further from the truth. The Jews refusal to bend is not rooted in a disdain for humanity, it is rooted in a deep belief in humanity. You see the Jew believes that no human should bend to the beauty, the wealth, the mystery, the righteousness or the power that is contained in finite existence. The Jew believes that humans have a greater calling than submitting themselves to servants. The Jew looks forward to the day when all of mankind will bend to the One Creator of all (Isaiah 2:17).

While God’s absolute sovereignty is hidden from the hearts of men the Jew is called to be God’s witness (Isaiah 43:10). It is our duty toward God and man not to kneel and not to bow. It is our duty to testify that every last man woman and child can approach the Father without the services of another subject of God. Our testimony is that the happiness of man will be found when we recognize that we are all recipients of God’s love and that our deepest joy is to acknowledge this simple truth with every breath of life.

The Jew’s refusal to bow is not a reflection of arrogance or disdain; it is a reflection of love and reverence. It is an invitation to see every facet of finite existence as a recipient of God’s love. And it is a declaration of God’s absolute mastery over all.

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Holidays | 74 Comments

Moses and Miracles by Annelise

Posted on March 12, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

In Exodus 4 we read that God gave Moses miracles so  that the Israelites would believe his message. The miracles of Aaron and Moses  were also proven greater than the power of the sorcerers in Egypt. We could get  the impression that if a miracle is big enough, it proves that a person’s  message is from God. According to the book of John, Jesus even said about  himself, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you  do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.”

Other chapters  in the Torah show us that Moses’ powerful and meaningful miracles were limited  in their significance, according to an existing context of faith. He could not  use them to teach against the faith that Abraham passed down to his descendants,  and certain signs were not enough to sustain the largest of claims.

Some  Christians say that if we ignore or reject the stories of Jesus’ miracles, we  must also ignore or reject Moses, on the same basis. We should therefore look  more closely at the context of miracles in the Torah, so that we can compare it  with the Christian stories.

Moses knew his prophecy was coming to a  nation with prior loyalties. In Exodus 3 he imagined himself telling the  Israelites that the God of their fathers had spoken to him. They would test him,  asking what god had sent him, by what name. God answered, “Thus you shall say to  the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you…” It would have been wrong for the  Israelites to go against their loyalty to their Creator, Jacob’s God, which they  had remembered throughout their time in Egypt, no matter what miracle was  performed.

A similar concept arises later in Deuteronomy 13. One of the  examples in Torah of ways that God tests His people’s hearts is through allowing  miracles to attach to a foreign message. Someone can pass the criteria for a  prophet and even perform great signs, but if they lead people into idolatry  there should be no fear of them.

So we should look at the battle of  powers between Moses and the sorcerers not as a proof to the Israelites about  which message to believe, but as a way of hammering home a point. Especially to  Pharaoh, who had asked, ““Who is the LORD, that I should heed him and let Israel  go?” Even if they had performed miracles and Moses performed none at all, they  could not reject the faith of their fathers, which they had not needed miracles  to accept and to guard to begin with.

Another important point. The early  miracles caused the Israelites to accept Moses’ earlier message. They believed  that God had taken notice of them. After the plagues, if they ignored Moses’  instructions, their firstborn sons would not have been protected. The miracles  of splitting of the sea, defeating the Egyptians, and the presence of God’s fire  and cloud, made them put their faith in Moses even more. But still, none of  these things were enough for them to accept the Torah as God’s words for all  generations of Israelites to come. On this occasion, the Israelites needed God  to speak to them directly. He told Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense  cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you  ever after.” Through this, we understand that some claims could not be proven  well enough to God’s people simply by signs or wonders.

Now we can look  more clearly at the claims about Jesus. Christians argue that Jesus never led  people to worship false gods, and so his miracles need not be disregarded. When  faced with the objection that many themes in the Christian scriptures are not  found in the Torah or prophets, and in fact go against the plain reading of  themes in those books, Christians say that they can still be read in a way that  does not contradict. They believe that since there is no inherent contradiction,  the claims of miracles (including resurrection) are authoritative proofs of  God’s favour towards Christian interpretations. Anyone who ignored the apostles’  stories would be, in this view, as rebellious as a child of the generation who  received Torah ignoring his or her parents’ testimony.

Two very large  objections remain. To begin with, the Jews of our generation do not believe in  Torah because they have heard that Moses did miracles in front of their  ancestors. And because every new claim is made in the context of loyalty to  faith in God as the heart of the nation has known Him before, it is up to the  generation of a prophet or miracle worker to weigh everything up. We simply have  no way of checking whether the claimed prophets and miracles workers (true and  false), such as Moses and Jesus, really did miracles, including coming back from  the grave. Historically it’s possible to doubt them both. We also can’t check  whether anything in a past figure’s message, or the message of their disciples,  was against the loyal heart of the nation to her God and to accepted revelations  from Him. So the way we look at this in hindsight needs to be different from the  way people were able to decide at the time: we have different sets of  information.

In hindsight, we can see that the original Jewish followers  of Jesus did not leave a line of descendants carrying their message through  history. This contrasts with the prediction of the Torah and the prophets that  the testimony of righteous Israel must be passed down from parent to child for  every generation, even in exile, and will be preserved in the midst of a  remnant. Instead, it is rabbinic Jews who have preserved the testimonial  observances in faith and sincerity, until this day. This is really case closed,  for all we can see from where we stand.

Still, it is possible to put  ourselves into the shoes of a first century Jew to consider something that still  matters to us just as much today. There are two witnesses that we should have a  high guard up regarding whom we worship. Our souls tell us that only our Creator  deserves it. And the Torah accepted by the children of Israel tells the Jews  constantly to be careful in this matter of avoiding false worship. It mentions  nothing about how to open the door, despite that caution, to test or take  seriously a claim that a fellow human being ‘is God incarnate’. If the miracles  of liberation from slavery and the sea being opened for a nation to come through  it were not great enough for the nation’s conviction about the commandments of  God’s Torah, then even a man raised from death in front of your eyes could not  use that to compel you to include him whenever you offer what only belongs to  God. Guarding our relationship with God is our deepest human loyalty and  concern. And for those of us who never saw Jesus perform any miracle, the  caution is rightly greater.

Countless Jews have given their hearts,  souls, minds, and strength to God through loyalty to the Torah of Moses, and  have nothing to do with Jesus. They themselves stand as a sign that the Jews did  not ignore Jesus out of hardness of heart towards God. They have continued to  teach their children to hold and cherish close relationships of obedience with  Him.

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Posted in Annelise | 15 Comments

Curse Reverser – Psalm 133:3

Posted on March 9, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

Curse Reverser – Psalm 133:3

Adam’s sin brought God’s curse and death into this world (Genesis 3:17-19). After all, God created a good world (Genesis 1:31). It was all built on God’s command (Psalm 148:5). Every facet of creation was following God’s command, and obedience to God is blessing and life. When Adam introduced disobedience with his violation of God’s command, he set up an illusion. Adam did an action that seeks goodness and blessing apart from God’s direct command. This created an illusion in people’s mind that God’s command doesn’t necessarily reign supreme.

Then God commanded Israel to build a Tabernacle. Every detail of the Tabernacle was built according to God’s direct instruction. Every detail of the service of the priests followed clear commandments from God through Moses. The Tabernacle and subsequently the Temple declared the supremacy of God’s command. Every facet of these holy structures affirmed: “as God commanded Moses.”

This created a realm which is directly opposed to the effects of Adam’s sin. In the Temple man comes face to face with the recognition that God’s command is everything and everything is God’s command. In the Temple we reconnect with the true source of life and blessing.

When we pray three times a day we put our minds and our hearts in the Temple. We bring ourselves into the realm in which every molecule was fashioned in obedience to God’s explicit command. We break through the illusion of this dark world which seeks pleasure and goodness in violation of God’s command and we stand fast in the reality which sees God’s commandment as the foundation of existence. And it is from there that we draw blessing and life and the courage to remain loyal to God.

Zion is the meeting place of God and His firstborn son. It is the place where God leaned down toward us with commandments and with the spirit to implement them. And it is the place where we yearn upward with the desire to connect to His light and His truth in total submission to His command. And it is the place where God commanded life and blessing forevermore.

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Basic | 47 Comments

A New Set of Feelings

Posted on February 27, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

A New Set of Feelings

The heart of the Jew who worships God is filled with emotion. Gratitude, awe, love and reverence for the One who brought everything into existence. Love for the One who knows all and sustains all with a degree of knowledge, precision and perfection that humanity could never fathom. Awe of the One who is the source of all truth and justice. Love of the One who is the source of all goodness and blessing. Gratitude toward the One who is presently sustaining every form of existence that we can encompass with our finite minds, including all of the people I see in front of me, the animals, the trees, the grass the sky and the sea. Reverence for the One who knows every thought of every man, woman and child that ever lived. And yearning toward the One who knows the yearnings of our hearts before we do.

The hearts of those early worshipers of Jesus were filled with adoration toward a man. We cannot see into their hearts but their spiritual descendants encourage the worshipers of God to join them in the adoration.

Joining in this adoration would mean adopting a set of feelings that is not yet present in one’s heart. Why do they seek to fill our hearts with a new set of feelings? What is missing in the heart of David? What was lacking in the heart of Abraham? Which set of feelings does the worshiper of God lack that he will find in Jesus?

The fact that they seek the hearts of those who worship God tells me that the heart of the God-worshiper is not the heart of the Jesus worshiper.

Need I say more?

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in General | 710 Comments

Annelise Responds to Answering Judaism

Posted on February 27, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

Annelise Responds to Answering Judaism

 

In a recent YouTube video, the Christian apologist ‘Answering Judaism’ respectfully responded to two videos by Rabbi Yisroel Blumenthal. I would like to join both men in their desire to bring such topics into light, and offer my perspective on the dialogue.

 

 

Here is the video: http://youtu.be/67LvX1GY6Ck

 

 

 

Rabbi Blumenthal spoke first about how Christians portray ‘multiplicity in God’, and often compare their belief to the way the Jewish Bible describes His many attributes. His reply was that in speaking of God’s attributes, observant Jews are not describing His essence but His actions. When we look at the qualities used to describe God, it’s not that we apprehend distinctive ‘parts’ in our immeasurable Maker. Instead, these attributes describe His ways, within creation, of relating with us. There is no parallel between the two, and Jews are not hypocritical when they reject out of hand the idea of ‘multiple people’ or ‘relationship’ in God.

 

 

 

In his reply, ‘Answering Judaism’ agreed that the term ‘trinity’ attempts to describe God’s essence, not His actions. Moving on from this statement of agreement, he didn’t further explore the immense importance of the point at hand. Our scriptures draw a purposeful distinction between the uncreated One and His tangible revelation in the world. According to historical Jewish tradition, He interacts through His word, wisdom, glory, light, presence, face, servants, and messengers: a deliberate reminder that things we see of God in this world of many finite parts are all not ‘Him’, but rather are directly from Him. To claim apprehension, even incomplete, of a ‘relationship in God’ is to magnify the finite forms in front of our eyes to the status of ‘infinite’. The mystery is simply greater than trinitarians allow, but respecting it is an important part of loyalty to let nothing but our Maker into our worship.

 

 

 

This does not mean that God is vague and distant. The opposite: every facet of creation and of our lives, large and small, rests on Him for existence. That is the miracle of creation. We are not God; we are not separate from Him. We know Him at the very deepest aspect of our created being, and He knows us completely; He is the source of our entire world; the eyes of all look to Him. According to Judaism, His blessings are personal and close. We do not need an ‘incarnation’ to stand on both sides of the relationship before we know that God’s embrace of humanity is very close. An idea like that actually blurs the line between our Creator and the creatures who serve Him and praise Him for the relationship held by the ‘line’ itself. But that, in the end, is what the trinity concept is: the portrayal of ‘a relationship’ which, though it treads within the finite realm of human sight, is erroneously believed to be ‘part of’ the infinite.

 

 

 

Of course, our understanding is so small that it is more important to focus on commandments and revelation than on speculation. Within our commitment to that, it is for these reasons that we react strongly against the idea of multiplicity in the ‘essence’ of Israel’s God, the Creator of all things. By saying that Christianity claims to describe God’s essence rather than His actions, Rabbi Blumenthal distinguished it from rabbinic Judaism and from the entire legacy of Israel from at Sinai.

 

 

 

The second point from Rabbi Blumenthal is that belief in a trinity did not predate the worship given to Jesus. It does not stand on its own as a teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures. Rabbi Blumenthal claimed that this new concept and category are only an excuse to let worship of a human into the Jewish commitment to God alone.

 

 

 

 

‘Answering Judaism’ correctly pointed out that this fact can be harmonized in other ways with Christian scripture. He suggested that while people were not aware of the ‘trinity’ before the time of Jesus, it was real all the while. Asserting that Jesus actually deserves our worship and yet is in a real relationship with the Father who is ‘above’ our world, ‘Answering Judaism’ suggested that the trinity doctrine prevents people from committing idolatry: the violation of offering total love (deserved only by God) to a man whom they know to be created.

 

 

 

What Rabbi Blumenthal said here was not a proof, but it does render the trinity concept suspicious. It was foreign to the people who were given the role of knowing God’s true worship among all the nations. It was developed at a time when people were already worshiping this man. It also flew against the constant scriptural descriptions of the role of a human being and an Israelite, and of how all beings in the world should relate to God. Is it stronger to assume that this previously unknown theory came from Israel’s God, or from the followers of Jesus? Might they have seen him first as the revelation from or portal to God, and decided from there that “the word was God”? Because of this, and the other reasons, the “Hashem language” in the Christian scriptures remains unjustified. We call this, too, the worship of an ordinary man.

 

 

 

In the third and final clip from his videos, Rabbi Blumenthal describes the anointed, promised king, called to follow in the footsteps of his father David, pointing attention not at himself but towards God. This promise is contrasted with the legacy of Jesus, who drew people away from pure worship of God and towards his own personality.

 

 

 

‘Answering Judaism’ responded that this is only the case if one assumes beforehand that Jesus was not God, but a created man, a usurper. While this is a common and understandable Christian response to Rabbi Blumenthal’s teaching, the argument actually goes deeper. It is more than an assumption or conclusion. What he illustrated here is the confusion of roles applied to Jesus. When a man or woman prays, when a Jew serves God through the Torah, and when a king of flesh and blood serves God like David did, they are embodying the role of a servant: one who is created and, along with “everything that has breath,” points all honour to God. If Jesus did pray publicly to the Father, if he kept Torah, and if he would be the king promised in place of David, then he would have been standing in front of us in the role of creation. All the signifiers tell us to worship past God’s servant, just as we look past Israel, and specifically David our king, to see the King. The humility before God in the job description of the coming king, to be an embodiment of Israel and all creation, cannot have been exhibited by Jesus if he did attract extreme attention towards his own personality. In biblical and Jewish vocabulary, to serve God is the role of creation.

 

 

 

May our Creator continue to bless us as we discuss how He calls us to know Him.

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Annelise, Critique | 5 Comments

Did You Ever Hear of Isaac?

Posted on February 20, 2014 by yourphariseefriend

Did You Ever Hear of Isaac?

 

In a pathetic attempt to defend himself from the accusation of having misquoted the Targum, Shapira again displays his incredible ignorance of the Bible (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgQOBqOx0ow ).

 

In my article entitled “The School of Matthew” I pointed out that Shapira misquoted the Targum to Micah 5:1. The Targum actually says that Messiah’s name has been called from ancient times while Shapira quotes the Targum as if it had said that the Messiah’s actual existence was from ancient times.

 

Shapira defends himself with two arguments. First he says that he accurately quoted a midrash about the name of the Messiah on page 168 in his book.

 

It seems that Shapira thinks that if he has one accurate quotation in his book then that entitles him to fill the rest of his book with misquotations and lies. If this is the level of honesty that you are looking for then Shapira is your man.

 

The next argument that Shapira excitedly announces to his audience is that in Judaism one may not name a child before it is born. Thus, if the Targum speaks of the name of the Messiah as something that was declared from ancient times that must mean that the Messiah himself must also originate from ancient times. Shapira makes this ridiculous claim as his friend sits there solemnly nodding along.

 

The Bible records that Isaac, Ishmael, Solomon and Josiah were all called by their names before they were born (Genesis 16:11; 17:19; 1Chronicles 22:9; 1Kings 13:2). It seems that Shapira and his friend are not familiar with some of the central characters in the Bible. If you want to join them in declaring your ignorance of the Bible all you need to do is click on the “like” symbol under Shapira’s video.

If you found this article helpful please consider making a donation to Judaism Resources by clicking on the link below.

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Judaism Resources is a recognized 501(c) 3 public charity and your donation is tax exempt.

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Critique | 6 Comments