How Did They Decide?

Posted on May 13, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

How Did They Decide?

 

Christianity stands on the words of a few men. If the disciples of Jesus would have ignored him as did most of the Jews of his day, no one would have ever heard of him. It is only because these men believed he was the Messiah that the world knows of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.

 

How did these people come to their conclusion? How did these followers of Jesus decide that he was the Messiah prophesied by the Jewish Bible? What was the motivation behind their decision? Was it a deep loyalty to the words of the prophets or was it some other factor that induced them to come to this conclusion?

 

It is not easy to determine if someone arrived at their conclusion on the basis of intellectual searching or if the conclusions were generated by some external factor and it is not always ethical to attempt to make these judgments. But when the group in question readily switches their beliefs from end to end simply in order to maintain their conclusion in the face of changing facts, it is naive and even irresponsible to take them seriously. Allow the followers of Jesus to illustrate.

 

According to the Christian Scriptures the followers of Jesus identified Jesus as the Messiah. In the best case scenario, this would mean that the followers of Jesus had carefully and thoroughly built in their minds a comprehensive portrait of the Messiah as predicted by the Jewish prophets. These men felt that their portrait of the Messiah was so solidly grounded in Scripture that they were willing to take upon themselves the weighty responsibility of positively identifying the Messiah with all of its cosmic ramifications. But after all of their Scriptural research they still did not expect Jesus to die (Luke 24:21) and they actually saw his death as a contradiction and a refutation to his Messianic claims. The portrait that they had developed did not include suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection. They had read Isaiah 53, Daniel 7 Psalm 22 and all of the missionary proof-texts without it occurring to them that the Messiah is supposed to suffer and die.

 

But after Jesus died and after they believed that he was resurrected, their portrait of the Messiah underwent a radical change – now the Messiah MUST suffer, he MUST die and if you deny these Biblical “truths” than you MUST be spiritually blinded.

 

If the Biblical interpretation could turn around on a dime just so that it can keep up with the devotion, there is no reason to grant it any credibility. It is not a matter of being judgmental; it is a matter of being responsible and faithful to the truths with which we were entrusted.

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in General | 86 Comments

How Were the Jewish Scriptures Canonized?

Posted on May 10, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

How Were the Jewish Scriptures Canonized?  “…the same standard that was used to determine the canonical status of the books of the Jewish Bible would have decidedly INVALIDATED the books of the Christian Scriptures.” (Christianity Unmasked)

How were the Jewish Scriptures canonized? How and why were the Christian Scriptures excluded from the Jewish canon? The Jewish Bible is a collection of books written over a span of approximately 1000 years. Many different societies consider this collection of books to be divinely inspired. The decision that various societies took to arrive at the conclusion that these books are divinely inspired is known as “canonization”.

Canonization need not be a formal process in which elected officials pass judgment on a given book. The process could be one in which the common-folk accept a book at the grass-roots level. The process of canonization could be a combination of a grass-roots acceptance together with a formal judgment, but either way it is a process that involves making decisions. At some point someone had to decide that this book is divinely inspired, that this text is Godly and that this prophet is telling the truth.

Once we are talking about a process of making decisions we can call the validity of such a process into question. Whether the decision took place at the grass-roots level of the common-folk or if it took place in some formal setting – it is still a process of arbitration and the validity of this process can always be contested. If the decision took place in the formal halls of religious power, it could be argued that the judges were corrupt, crooked and motivated by nothing more than their own petty self-interests. If the decision took place in the minds and the hearts of the common-folk it can be argued that the judges were ignorant, swayed by the charisma of a popular figure, or simply acting on misinformation. Either way, if a society accepts or rejects a claim to prophecy or a prophetic book, the decision of the society could always be challenged.

At this juncture we have two paths open before us; we could either revisit the decision and arrive at our own conclusion, or we could accept the decision of those who already decided before us. If we chose the latter path (- accepting the decision of the previous generations) we need to be able to articulate why it is that we trust and accept their decision. We will soon attempt to reevaluate the decision of the earlier generations that gave us the Jewish Scriptures, but that will not be our starting point. Throughout history, most people have not revisited the decision but rather they accepted the Jewish Bible on the basis of the acceptance of the original generation who made that decision.

Furthermore, it is impossible to truly reevaluate the decision of those who knew the prophet or the authors of the Biblical books. One of the key factors in such a decision is the personal character of the claimant to prophecy or to divine inspiration. Is this person just, kind, moral, humble and holy? Or is this person insensitive, inconsiderate, dishonest, cruel and immoral? The people in the best position to judge a person’s character are the people who live with him every day. Once those people have passed on, we can no longer evaluate the person’s character with any degree of accuracy. There is no question that those who knew the prophet were in a far better position than we are to assess the personal qualities of the prophet.

Another factor that gives the generation who lived with the prophet an edge over us in the process of evaluating the given prophet is the simple fact that we do not know what the prophet did or didn’t say. It is entirely possible that the claimant to prophecy made predictions that did not come true and we have no way of knowing if this did or didn’t happen. It is because of their possession of so much more relevant information that it is foolish to dispute the decision of the generation who knew the prophet.

We could however question the validity of the process. What criteria did the original judges (be they religious leaders or the average citizen) apply in their evaluation of the claimant to prophecy? How can we know that the process wasn’t corrupted by immoral judges? How can we know that the opinion of the populace wasn’t swayed by the charisma of a smooth-talker which caused them to disregard evidence that would have overturned their decision? Until we can answer these questions there is no reason to accept any given book into the Scriptural canon.

In order to answer these questions we need to go back to the roots of the Jewish faith. The Jewish faith stands on the unique nature of the miracles of the exodus and the Sinai revelation. These miracles gave Israel a perception of God and these miracles established the credibility of Moses as a prophet. These miracles also established the status of the Jewish people as God’s chosen nation. No other people claim that God established His truth in their midst in such an open and obvious manner. The Bible points to these miracles in order to establish the immutability of God’s covenant with the Jewish people (Deuteronomy 4:30-35).

Once it is established that the Jewish people are God’s witnesses (Isaiah 43:10) we can then accept their testimony. Since God so openly associated Himself with this people we can be sure that He will work to preserve His truth in their midst. The Bible records God’s promise that His word will not be forgotten from Israel (Deuteronomy 31:21, Isaiah 59:21).

This is especially true when we focus on the issue of false prophecy. God explicitly promises to ensure that false prophecy will not endure in Israel (Ezekiel 13:9). We cannot revisit the decisions of the previous generations, but we know that the Jewish people are the witnesses whom God appointed to pass on His word from generation to generation (Psalm 78:5,6). If God appointed a witness, then we can trust that He knew what He was doing.

The fact that the community of God’s chosen witnesses immortalized the words of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, tells us that these men were indeed prophets. The words of Jesus, on the other hand, were not preserved by the Jewish people. Any original Hebrew or Aramaic copies of Jesus’ words have disappeared off the face of the earth. The Jewish followers of Jesus, who could never be considered a significant statistic of the Jewish population to begin with, were eradicated by their gentile brothers in faith. The Greek versions of Jesus’ teachings never took root amongst Jews to begin with. God did not allow the message of Jesus to be preserved in the setting of His witness community. This tells us that Jesus was not a prophet sent by the God of Israel.

If we attempt to revisit the decision of our ancestors concerning the acceptance of the Jewish Bible and the rejection of the Christian Scriptures, we would not necessarily be able to justify the acceptance of every last book in the canon of the Jewish Scripture, but we would easily come to the same conclusion concerning the Christian Scripture. It is not easy to determine how it was that the previous generations came to the conclusion that every last book belongs in the Jewish Bible. What criteria did they use to evaluate narratives such as the books of Judges, Samuel, Esther and Ezra? How did they decide which poems to include in the Psalms and how did they know to give the book of Job its status as a part of the Bible? But we trust that if God appointed this nation as the guardians of His truth, then it is God’s will that we accept their testimony. But when it comes to the books of the Christian Scripture, we can readily see why they were not included in the canon of the Jewish Bible.

The first criterion for a true prophet is that he or she encourages worship of the God of our ancestors (Deuteronomy 13:2-6) and not of a god our fathers never knew. A true prophet will not speak in the name of a god we never knew (Deuteronomy 18:20). The Jewish perception of God precludes attributing divinity to a human. Thus the Christian Scriptures which encourage worship of Jesus and speak in his name do not qualify as prophetic books according to the Biblical criteria.

The Christian counter-argument which contends that the Jewish perception of God is corrupted – is refuted by the Bible itself. The Bible tells us that we should evaluate the claimant to prophecy by measuring his message against our perception of God. In other words, the Bible refers to the Jewish perception of God as the constant, the immutable axiom and the claim to prophecy is the variable. God commands us to judge the claimant to prophecy, disregarding all of his or her miracles, on the basis of our perception of God. It is clear that God considers the Jewish perception of God to be a valid standard to be used in the evaluation of any prophet. This is understandable in light of the fact that it is God Himself who taught Israel who it is that they are to worship (Exodus 20:2). He didn’t present this teaching through the medium of a prophet and He did not have His people read about it in a book. God personally spoke to every living Jew at the time so that they can pass on this message to their children in the living and loving setting of parents baring their hearts to their children. No prophet, theologian or miracle worker can dispute what God Himself taught us. It is as simple as that.

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Faith Structure | 22 Comments

Weeks of Harvest – Jeremiah 5:24

Posted on April 27, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

Weeks of Harvest – Jeremiah 5:24

The Bible does not explicitly describe Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, as the day of the giving of the Torah. We can calculate that the date of the festival coincides with that historic revelation but the explicit association is not there. One explanation given for this conspicuous omission is that there is no one day of the “giving of the Torah”. Every day is a day when God grants teaching to His people as they study His word with awe and love. To point to one day as the day of the “giving of the Torah” would imply that there is a limit to God’s granting of teaching to His people when in fact God grants His people wisdom every day of the year (Proverbs 2:6).

I would like to approach this issue from another angle.

The exodus from Egypt is described in the 6th chapter of the Book of Exodus. “Therefore say to the Children of Israel; I am the Lord; and I shall take you out from under the burdens of Egypt and I shall rescue you from their service and I shall redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I shall take you to Me for a people and I shall be to you for a God and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who takes you out from under the burdens of Egypt.”(Exodus 6:6,7).

The process of the exodus was not complete until Israel “knew” the God who took them out of Egypt. The purpose of the exodus was that Israel should serve God (Exodus 4:23; 7:16,26; 8:16; 9:1,13; 10:3). Israel was brought to God at Sinai (Exodus 19:4) and they encountered God at Sinai (Deuteronomy 5:4). The knowledge of God and the service of God which is the hoped for product of the exodus was not fully achieved until the Sinai revelation.

The weeks between Passover and Shavuot are important weeks in the agricultural cycle. The prophet points to God’s kindness in that He preserves the crops so that the harvest should be blessed (Jeremiah 5:24). In these weeks, God’s kindness towards humanity is evident in His protection of the crops that sustain and provide nourishment for our bodies.

Israel is considered God’s first crop (Jeremiah 2:3). Just as God moves to preserve our physical sustenance, God also moves to provide for our spiritual sustenance. The end product, the ripening of the fruit in a spiritual sense, is the knowledge of God that is the ultimate hope of mankind (Isaiah 11:9).

From the standpoint of the target audience of Scripture; the Jew who sees his or her relationship with God as the essence of life, the association between Shavuot and the revelation at Sinai is clear and unambiguous. The ripening of the grain that culminates with Shavuot and the knowledge of God that was achieved at Sinai are the parable and its obvious interpretation. God’s protection of the harvest during these weeks between Passover and Shavuot reminds us of God’s provision for the sustenance of our souls that repeats itself every year during these special times.

May we all be blessed to drink from the living well-springs of God’s Torah, and may we all experience the knowledge of God (Hosea 2:21,22).

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Holidays | 3 Comments

Excerpt from Vol. 4 – Sabbath

Posted on April 26, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

If we focus on what God teaches us about the Sabbath in the Jewish Scriptures it will become obvious that not only did the followers of Jesus do away with God’s Sabbath (something that they never tried to hide), but that the belief system built around Jesus is the very antithesis of God’s Sabbath. It was through the Sabbath that God empowered and encourages the Jewish people to reject the claims of this self-proclaimed god-man.

The Sabbath is the sign that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh (Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 20:8-11, 31:12-17).

The one truth that is the underlying principle of the Jewish Scriptures is the fact that God is God and everything else are but His creations. This truth is stated explicitly in the first verse of the Bible, and is the implicit message of every verse that follows. This foundational truth: that God is the One Master of all, was made known to the Jewish people through the miracles of the exodus and through the Sinai revelation (Deuteronomy 4:35). God’s absolute sovereignty is brought home to the hearts of the Jewish people through the observance of Sabbath, and the Jewish people testify this truth to the world through the observance of Sabbath.

The heart of the Jew’s calling before God is that we stand as witnesses to the ultimate truth: the fact that God alone is Lord (Isaiah 44:8), and it is through observance of the Sabbath that the Jew dispenses his calling before God. It is for this reason that the Sabbath is the covenantal sign between God and His people, and it is for this reason that commandment to observe the Sabbath is situated together with the commandment against idolatry and the injunction to honor our parents (Exodus 20:1-12, Leviticus 19:3-4).

The commandment against idolatry is based on our understanding that God is the only one deserving of our devotion to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. The commandment to honor our parents reminds us, as does the Sabbath, that our own existence is not an intrinsic truth but rather a gift that God chose to grant us through the medium of our parents.

God granted man control of all of creation (Genesis 1:28, Psalm 8:7). With the mastery of the earth placed in his hands, it is very easy for man to forget that he is a servant and fall into the illusion of thinking that he is master. By relinquishing control of the world once a week, the Jew reminds himself and testifies to all who care to hear, that we are not the masters, but rather, that we are all servants of the One Master.

Observance of the Sabbath gave the Jew an unambiguous and explicit perspective of reality. When the Jew encounters a rock, a plant an animal, a fellow human or an angel – the Sabbath tells the Jew – this form of existence is not your master – it is a creation of your God just as you are. While the populations around them were enslaved to the beliefs that they are subservient to forces of nature or to people who were born into a higher station in life – the Sabbath set the Jew free. The truth of the Sabbath gave the Jew the clarity to see through the intimidating posture of those who claimed to be the masters of men. The Sabbath reminded the Jew that there is but One Master, and that all are equally subservient to Him.

When the Christian missionaries presented Jesus as “man’s lord” (page 229), the nations who did not know the message of the Sabbath were taken in. They accepted this false teaching and believed themselves to be under the mastery of this Jesus.

The Jew, however, who had absorbed the message of Sabbath was enabled by the Sabbath to identify this teaching for what it is – a call to idolatry. The Sabbath taught the Jew that no-one but the One Creator of heaven and earth can lay claim to the title of: Master. When any one inhabitant of God’s creation claims to be the master – the Sabbath tells us – he is but a servant like ourselves.

The Sabbath is the very antithesis of Christianity. It is no wonder then that the followers of Jesus developed such a hatred and scorn for God’s holy day. As for us, we will walk in the light of God’s holy Sabbath until the darkness of Christianity is dispelled and all flesh will recognize that God alone is king (Zechariah 14:9).

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Judaism | 9 Comments

Fire, Offerings and Passover

Posted on April 1, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

Fire, Offerings and Passover

There is no Hebrew counter-part for the English word: “sacrifice”. The terms that the Bible uses to describe the sacrifices in the Temple are: “olah” – a word that represents the burning of the offering with an emphasis of the smoke that rises from the fire; “zevach” – a word that denotes the slaughtering of the offering and its subsequent consumption by the worshipers; “mincha” – a gift; and the word: “korban” – which also means “gift”, with the additional connotation of closeness. The underlying concept of the Biblical offering seems to be the offering of something to God.

It is actually impossible to “give” anything to God. In the Psalms (50:12) God declares: “If I were hungry I would not tell you for mine is the world and all that fills it”. When preparing the materials for the construction of the Temple, David acknowledged: “O Lord, our God, all this vast amount that we have prepared to build a Temple for your holy name is from your own hand, for everything is yours” (1Chronicles 29:16). The created cannot give anything to the Creator of all. Yet God allows His creations to bring offerings to Him and He demonstrates His acceptance of these gifts by sending a miraculous fire from heaven to consume the offerings that were presented to Him (Leviticus 9:24; 2Chronicles 7:1). It is God’s sign of His love for His creations that he accepts their offerings. Not because He needs them, but because He loves us.

In order to give the offering an appearance of “giving” something to God, we need to have a designated place that represents God’s presence. Since the entire world is God’s place (Isaiah 6:3), moving something from here to there will not bring the item any closer to God.

Throughout Scripture we find several methods that are used to create an impression of bringing something closer to God. A fire is one of these methods. Since we perceive God as dwelling in heaven and since the fire sends the offering skyward in a pillar of smoke, the fire symbolizes offering something to God. An altar is another method that is used to create this impression. An altar is a structure that is built with the deliberate and conscious intention of designation to God’s service. By placing an offering on an altar that is consecrated to God, we arrive at the impression of having offered something to God. Yet another method of creating the impression of “giving” to God is the Temple or the Tabernacle. These are buildings were built by God’s express command and were consecrated with miraculous signs. God tied His identity to these edifices, and He allowed them to be called “The House of God”. By bringing something to “God’s house” we have the impression of “giving” to God. Generally, all three methods were used to create the impression of bringing an offering to God. Most offerings were brought on an altar in the Temple and were consumed by a fire on this altar. Thus all three methods were used to create the impression of having “given” something to God.

The Passover offering in Egypt is unusual. It is the only offering where not one of these three methods were used to create the impression of “bringing” something to God. There was no altar, there was no Temple and nothing was put in a fire to be consumed and sent heavenward in a pillar of smoke. How then was that Passover considered an “offering” to God?

It seems that we have overlooked another method that God uses to create the impression of having “given” to God. The Torah teaches us that various parts of certain offerings were to be eaten by the priests (Leviticus 6:19, 7:6). The priests were people who were consecrated for the service of God. When they would eat from the offerings, it would be considered that the members of God’s household had eaten these foods. The same concept appears in relation to the tithes that were brought to the Temple to be eaten by the Levites. God commands the people to: “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so that there may be food in My house…” (Malachi 3:10). When people who are consecrated for the service of God eat the offerings, it is as if we have brought the offering to God.

The entire purpose of the exodus was to create a nation for God. By redeeming Israel from Egypt, God made them a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6) and a people who are designated for the service of God (Exodus 4:23; Leviticus 25:55). From the time of the exodus onward, the Jewish home became a place that is consecrated for the service of God (Deuteronomy 6:9; 11:20). By placing the blood of the Passover on the doorposts of God’s servants and by having God’s children partake of the meat of the lamb, the Passover offering was “given” to God.

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Holidays, Judaism | 202 Comments

Fusion and Confusion

Posted on March 29, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

Fusion and Confusion

 

When people of two different cultures attempt to communicate with each other, they often encounter difficulties. There are several factors that serve to frustrate the efforts of these two different people to converse with each other. One of these impediments is the fusing together of two concepts in the mind of one of the participants in the conversation.

 

For the sake of illustration let us take the concepts of success and happiness. In the mind of the Western world the concept of success is fused together with the concepts of fame and wealth and happiness is intimately associated with instant gratification. If a person who is inculcated with the mentality of the modern Western civilization attempts to talk about happiness and success with a person from another culture that does not share in these artificial associations, there is bound to be some misunderstanding between them. Whenever the word happiness is mentioned in the conversation the Westerner will be thinking “instant gratification”, while that concept may not be the intention of his counter-part at all.

 

In order for people to have meaningful conversation it is necessary to identify these potential impediments that could stand in the way of people’s attempts to understand each other.

 

The impediment of artificial fusion of concepts is pronounced in the ongoing conversation between Jews and Christians. In the mind of the Christian the concepts of: “God” and “Jesus” are fused together. The Christian mind sees these as one entity. When the Jew says “God”, the Christian hears “Jesus” while the Jew never meant Jesus to begin with. When the Jew accuses the Christian of worshiping an idol, the Christian is baffled. In the Christian mind the God of Israel is inextricably intertwined with the Jesus of the Christian Scriptures. When the Jew talks of rejecting Jesus, the Christian hears a rejection of the God of the Jewish Bible.

 

The first step in a meaningful conversation would be to attempt to untangle this confusion, but it is not so easily accomplished. You may explain to the Christian that God and Jesus are not one and the same and that the two concepts could be separated. The Christian will perhaps understand you on an intellectual level, but the association between “God” and “Jesus” in the Christian mind runs much deeper than the intellect. Every emotion and every feeling that the Christian associates with God is also attributed in his or her heart to Jesus. It is very difficult for a Christian to disentangle these two concepts.

 

It would be premature to attempt to prove to a Christian that Jesus is not God and that God is not Jesus as long as the two words are synonymous in his or her heart. It is first necessary to establish a working language before attempting to engage in a complicated conversation. In the emotional vocabulary of the Christian, the word “God” means “Jesus” and the word “Jesus” means “God”. It is as if there was a language barrier preventing communication between the Jew and the Christian. That language barrier must be crossed before a meaningful discussion could begin.

 

Perhaps one way to overcome this language barrier is to use the words “God without Jesus” instead of using the word “God” alone. If you succeeded in breaking the language barrier, you can them begin talking with your Christian counter-part. You can only know that you broke the barrier if the Christian you are talking with is not comfortable with the term: “God without Jesus”. If the Christian is too comfortable with the concept of “God without Jesus” then these two concepts (“God” and “Jesus”) are still fused together in his or her mind and even though you are saying: “God without Jesus” the Christian is still thinking “God with Jesus”.

 

Perhaps you might need to take it a step further. You might try to explain that when you say “God without Jesus” you mean the Creator of heaven and earth accomplishing all He needs to accomplish in His universe without coming down to earth as a human. You might want to articulate that you are thinking of a God whose relationship with humanity is complete in every way without Him having to come down in an incarnation. Ask the Christian you are talking with to attempt to conceptualize this idea – “God without any possibility of Jesus”. Try to get him or her to imagine a universe where Jesus was not and will not be born. If the Christian you are talking with has understood the concept of “God without Jesus” – you could then begin the conversation.

 

You might want to explain to you Christian friend that the Jewish people have a covenant with this entity called “God without Jesus”. They share a deep and intimate relationship with this entity – a relationship that the Scriptures compare to a marriage. If this entity is too small for your Christian friend, you may want to explain to him or her that this is the One who we followed into the wilderness out of pure love (Jeremiah 2:1). It is to this God (the One without Jesus) who we are loyal to and we will stand for His truth forever.

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in General | 11 Comments

Forming a Nation

Posted on March 29, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

Forming a Nation

Exodus 13:8, Psalm 78:5

The exodus from Egypt was a foundational event in the history of our nation and the retelling of the story is an important aspect of preserving our heritage as Jews. On the first night of Passover, Jewish people around the world join together in a family setting and retell the story of the exodus. But the exodus is more than just a story from the past, the exodus is a living implement in the hand of God that serves to create a nation for Himself year after year.

The wording that the Torah uses to teach us to retell the story to our children does not directly indicate that the story ought to be told on the first night of Passover. By tying the retelling of the story to the special observances of Passover (Exodus 13:8) we are given to understand that the recounting of the exodus to our children ought to be done together with the observance of Passover.

One of the key observances is the eating of Matzah; the unleavened bread. The Torah teaches that this bread is to remind us that we left Egypt in a hurry (Deuteronomy 16:3). Why is the haste with which God took us out of slavery such an integral part of the story? Why is there such an emphasis on this seemingly peripheral aspect of the redemption from slavery?

The haste with which we left Egypt casts the entire exodus in a different light. It is easy to look at the exodus as a nullification of something evil. We were enslaved, and God intervened on our behalf so that we could go free. If that was the entire thrust of the exodus there would be no point in focusing on how quickly we left Egypt. The emphasis would be on the fact that Pharaoh and the Egyptians no longer enslaved us. Where we went and how we went after we obtained our freedom would be irrelevant. But the exodus is not just the nullification of something evil; it is the creation of something holy. The key of the exodus is not so much that Pharaoh is no longer enslaving us, but rather the focus is the idea that God created a nation and took them for Himself. The miraculous haste with which we left Egypt demonstrates God’s concern for us after we were freed. The emphasis on the haste highlights that the exodus is not so much about not being in Egypt, but it is more about where God wants us to be now.

The entire exodus experience was God’s way of crafting and designing a nation for Himself. The slavery itself is described as a formative experience for Israel (Deuteronomy 4:20). The Torah consistently reminds us of the slavery experience to encourage us to empathize with the weaker people in society (Exodus 22:20; 23:9; Leviticus 19:34; Deuteronomy 10:19; 15:15; 24:18, 22). In other words; the slavery experience was designed by God to impact us in a way that we could then serve His purpose as a nation before God. The miracles of the exodus also serve the function of impacting us in a particular way so that we could serve as God’s witnesses (Exodus 10:2; Deuteronomy 4:34). The entire exodus story is the story of God carefully crafting a nation who would carry His message and accomplish His purpose throughout history.

The exodus is not just a story, it is an experience that ought to change the way we live our lives. The exodus from Egypt is one of the hammer-blows that God used to create a unique nation.

This hammer-blow is not limited to the past, it lives on and it continues to impact us today. God established testimony in Jacob (Psalm 78:5). This means that God designed a method of preserving the exodus experience in a way that future generations of Jews will continuously be impacted by this foundational event. This method includes the observances of Passover. By telling the exodus story in the setting that God designed for this retelling of the story – the observance of Passover – the story becomes alive. We are able to touch the exodus and the exodus experience continues to touch us.

When we sit around the table with our families on the first night of Passover we should realize that we are being equipped by our God so that we could fulfill His purpose. Our observance of the Passover is the medium through which God’s testimony is passed from generation to generation – so that the last generation will know. As the Psalmist puts it; our responsibility is to put our trust in God and to keep His commandments (78:7) – this is the calling for which we were created.

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Holidays, Judaism | 1 Comment

Passover – Genesis 17:7

Posted on March 27, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

 

Passover – Genesis 17:7

 

The commandment to partake of the Passover offering is unique in that circumcision is a necessary prerequisite for participation in this observance (Exodus 12:48). The Scriptural narratives that describe the observance of Passover in the generations of Hezekiah and Josiah shed light on the connection between Passover and circumcision.

 

In the book of Second Chronicles we read about the observance of Passover in the times of Hezekiah. The passage describes how Hezekiah’s messengers gathered the people and encouraged them to come to Jerusalem to observe the Passover (2Chronicles 30:1-13). The passage goes on to describe how the people celebrated this holiday with great joy (verses 15-27). The verse that joins the two parts of the narratives seems out of place. This verse reads: “They got up and removed the altars that were in Jerusalem, they also removed all of the incense altars and threw them into the Kidron Ravine” (verse 14). It is obvious that the prophetic narrator saw the removal of the idolatrous altars as an essential component to the observance of Passover.

 

The same theme is repeated in the Scriptural narrative of the Passover that was observed in the times of Josiah. In the 23rd chapter of 2Kings we find a lengthy description of Josiah’s efforts at eradicating every last vestige of idolatry from the land of Israel (1-20). This narrative is followed by Josiah’s commandment to the nation to observe the Passover and their compliance with his command (21-23). In the verse that follows the brief Passover narrative we read: “Furthermore, the necromancers, the conjurers of spirits, the teraphim, the execrable-idols and all the abominations that had been seen in the land of Judah and Jerusalem, Josiah removed…” (verse 24). Again we see how the eradication of idolatry is considered to be an inherent aspect of observance of the Passover.

 

Every offering is a rededication to God. When one approaches God’s altar with his lamb, with his dove or with his flour offering and these are placed on the fire that ascends heavenward, part of his heart goes up with his offering. By coming face to face with the continuous fires of the altar and the life-blood that was placed on its walls, the worshiper came to the conscious recognition that all physical existence, even life itself, belongs to God. The altar represents the concept that all of life is but an altar upon which man ought to put his energy and wealth towards the constant service of God. When the worshiper returned home from his visit to the Temple, the fires of the altar burned in his heart together with a renewed commitment to the service of God.

 

The Passover offering is also a rededication to the service of God, but it is not the rededication of the individual; it is a national rededication to God. When Passover comes, Israel relives its birth as a people unto God. Israel relives the time when God passed over the Jewish homes thus declaring that the home of the Jew is not a part of Egypt, but is rather an altar within which God’s service is performed. The Passover offering is Israel’s rededication to its calling as God’s nation. This calling was first ratified between God and Abraham through the covenant of circumcision. It was then that God bound Himself up with Abraham and his children:”…to be a God to you and to your offspring after you.” (Genesis 17:7).

 

This is the calling of Israel and this is what happened when God took for Himself a nation from the bondage of Egypt: “I shall take you to Me for a people and I shall be a God to you” (Exodus 6:7, Numbers 15:41). Being a people to God is a national marriage to God. Our calling as a nation unto God requires that our hearts be pledged to God alone. If any one part of the nation is engaged in idolatry, the national rededication that is Passover cannot be complete. Hezekiah and Josiah recognized that this offering requires a complete rededication to God on the part of the nation. They saw the eradication of any vestige of idolatry as part and parcel of the celebration of Passover.

 

This renewal of the national commitment to the service of God is higher than any individual’s commitment to God. The relationship between Israel and God goes beyond the relationship of servant towards Master; God and Israel are bound to one another with a covenant. The covenant redefines both God and Israel. The covenant gives God the name: “God of Israel” and the same covenant gives Israel the name: “God’s nation”. Circumcision, the sign that ratifies God’s special relationship with Israel is a necessary prerequisite to the celebration of Passover. The national rededication to God that the Passover embodies must be ratified with this sign of our marriage to God. That is what makes this rededication to God special and unique.

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Holidays, Judaism | 3 Comments

Christianity Unmasked

Posted on February 28, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

Christianity Unmasked

 

Preface

 

A brief word of caution before you begin reading. I will be speaking ill of Christianity and its founder. I will not mince my words; stop here if you don’t want to go there.

 

I will make another introductory statement. I recognize full well that Christians have done much good for mankind and that Christianity has incorporated much that is holy. I recognize also that throughout history and until today there were many truly righteous Christians; sincere men and women whose lives reflected sheer Godliness. I do not deny these facts and I cannot deny them. I will however remind you that the tree that brought death to this world was not the tree of evil. It was the tree of good and evil. It is the mixture of good and evil that is so deadly. Yes; there is good in Christianity, and yes; many people have built their lives on that good and have lit up the world with righteousness. But so many more have focused on the evil side of Christianity and filled the world with pain, darkness and death. It is that evil side of Christianity to which I draw your attention in these paragraphs.

 

One final introductory statement before I begin. I am a Jew and I speak as a Jew. My religious background gives me a unique perspective of Christianity. I look at Christianity from the vantage point of a belief system that Christianity cannot disavow. All of the theological claims of Christianity stand on the basis of the revelation that was first granted to the Jewish people. But that same revelation contradicts everything that Christianity has introduced into the thought process of humanity. For 2000 years the Church has attempted to shut the mouth of the Jew who would dare expose her fault-lines. The time has come to end that silence.

 

 

 

Modus Operandi

 

The most prized possession of mankind is the truth. Truth is also the most powerful possession of humanity. Truth is virtually indestructible. Mighty empires have fallen because they ran afoul of one universal truth or another. Truth cannot be destroyed, but it can be manipulated and exploited for the advancement of falsehood.

 

There are several ways that falsehood can take advantage of truth. By combining falsehood with truth and presenting the mixture as pure unadulterated truth, falsehood can then enjoy the popularity and credibility of truth. By associating oneself with a particular truth a teacher of falsehood can attempt to take the credit as the originator of that truth. And by presenting a distorted version of the truth, an institution of lies can attempt to set itself up as the sole distributor of truth.

 

This then is the modus operandi of Christianity; it has exploited the truth for the advancement of the lie. This institution and her teachers have taken certain universal truths and combined them with some of her own teachings. The spread of this mixture was accelerated because of the truth it contains. The Church has enjoyed the credibility associated with these truths because people failed to discern between that which is originally Christian and that which is the true possession of all mankind. Christianity has also falsely claimed to be the originator of certain truths that do not belong to her. And finally and most seriously, the Church has set herself up as the sole distributor of truths that belong to everyone.

 

We shall examine several basic truths associated with Christianity and we intend to expose how she has exploited them for her advantage. These are; the universal principles of justice and charity, the inherent Godliness of man, the testimony of the Jewish nation, the Jewish Scriptures, the Messianic hope and the relationship that man shares with God. These truths are the most precious possessions of mankind, they belong to everybody. But the Church has distorted these truths so that millions were misled to believe that they can only be acquired at her altar.

 

The Universal Principles of Justice and Charity

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3 – 7:27) is perhaps one of the most famous teachings of Christianity. In this Sermon, Jesus presents some basic and beautiful truths. The basic principles of morality, justice and kindness are articulated in this teaching clearly and concisely. But if you step back and look at the literary structure of the book of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount takes on a different character entirely.

 

The underlying theme of the book of Matthew (and Christianity as a whole) is the exaltation of Jesus and the emphasis of humanity’s “need” for Jesus. The author of the book of Matthew presents the Sermon on the Mount not so much as a teaching on how to live a moral life but as an argument for the superiority of Jesus. Immediately after the Sermon (Matthew7:28,29) the author tells us how the crowds were amazed at the teaching; not because of the beauty of the truths they contained, but because Jesus spoke with incomparable “authority”. Key segments of the Sermon are introduced with the phrase: “You have heard that it was said to them of old time” and contrasted with “But I (Jesus) say to you”. This literary device accentuates the fictitious notion that Jesus is the originator of these universal truths and that they were unknown to mankind until Jesus uttered them to his audience.

 

But this is false. These universal principles of justice and charity were planted by the Creator into the heart of every man and woman; they belong to all of us. Every one of us is sensitive to an injustice that we suffer at the hands of another. We are all acutely aware that injustice is wrong and evil when we find ourselves at the receiving end of an injustice. This is the guide that our Creator gave us all to teach us these universal principles. Every civilization has produced individuals who have brought greater clarity to these universal principles through the lives they lived and through the words they uttered. Clarifying and articulating these universal principles is good and Godly; falsely claiming to be the originator of these universal principles is not.

 

The Inherent Godliness of Mankind

 

Man was created in the image of God. Even after Adam’s fall, the Bible still points to this basic truth as the underlying basis for the prohibition against murder (Genesis 9:6). This Biblical truth has many ramifications not least of which is the fact that every human being is inherently capable of living a Godly life. The capability for righteousness is an integral part of every human soul.

 

Christianity has set itself up in opposition to this truth but at the same time it has exploited this truth in a deep and insidious way.

 

Christianity contends that man is inherently evil. The Church theologians have emphasized Biblical passages that speak of man’s proclivity towards evil and of the fallibility of humanity. The teachers of Christianity have highlighted the negative side of the history of man, the wars, the cruelty and the immorality in order to establish her teaching that man is bad. According to the Church, it is only acceptance of Jesus into one’s heart that can alter this sorry state of affairs. Christianity asserts that man is evil until he bends his heart towards Jesus. Faith in Jesus, it is taught, generates a “new birth” that produces a “new person” who is now inherently inclined towards righteousness and holiness.

 

This false teaching affects the Christian mind in two different areas; in the way Christians view non-Christians and in the way Christians view themselves.

 

One who believes the Church teaching on the inherent evil of man will find it difficult to acknowledge any goodness in non-Christians (or in Christians who are defined as heretical). After all, these people were never “born again” so how could they be Godly? In the more extreme forms of this world-view, non-Christians are viewed as enemies of God. It is no coincidence that the same institution that denied the Biblical truth of the second half of Genesis 9:6 is the same institution that most often violated the commandment expressed in the first half of that same verse.

 

The effect of the Christian teaching on the inherent evil of humanity is even more pronounced in the way Christians view themselves. When a Christian accepts Jesus and when this same Christian finds in his or her heart a capacity for righteousness they will automatically credit Jesus for this blessing. “After all”, the Christian reasons, “on my own I am completely evil; it must be my new birth in Jesus that brought this goodness into my heart”. The Church’s distorted teaching on the nature of man acts as a stranglehold on the minds of those who believe this teaching. These people are lead to believe that if they abandon their faith in Jesus they will become evil people.

 

All of us have a capacity for Godliness and righteousness; it is a gift that God has granted all of humanity. Many people fail to actuate this gift but we all possess it. There are many strategies that can be used to bring forth man’s inherent capacity for goodness, and under certain circumstances, belief in Jesus can serve as this trigger. But the historical record has demonstrated that belief in Jesus can just as easily be used to bring forth man’s capacity for evil and destruction. The fact remains that the Godliness that is innate to every human soul is in no way related to belief in Jesus, rather it is part and parcel of the original creation of all men. The claim that belief in Jesus is what produces this capacity is simply a strategy that has been used by the Church to control the hearts and the minds of her followers.

 

The Testimony of the Jewish Nation

 

The Jewish people take up a unique position in the saga of human history. The Jewish people bear a message of One God who is the Master of all nature. The Jewish people are associated with a holy law, a law of morality, justice and charity. The Jewish people present an unparalleled claim of a covenant with God, a covenant confirmed with miracles that affected nations in the world of objective reality.

 

All of these together lend an aura of credibility toIsrael’s message. The prophet’s ofIsraelare respected on the basis ofIsrael’s unique standing amongst the nations.Israel’s universal message carries a certain weight in the minds of men because of this aura of credibility that surrounds the Jewish people.

 

The Church has exploited Israel’s credibility in her effort to advance her own agenda. The Church presents itself as the culmination and fulfillment of anything credible associated withIsrael. Christianity took the Jewish Bible and claimed it for herself. Christianity tookIsrael’s Messianic hope and reconstructed it for her own purposes. Christianity tookIsrael’s covenant and made it her own. And Christianity tookIsrael’s God and redefined Him to fit her own theological claims. I will elaborate on each of these in the next few paragraphs, but first let us stop and see what the Church has done to the Jewish people.

 

The eternal Jewish community testifies against all of the claims of the Church. It was important to the Church thatIsraelshould lose her credibility in the eyes of men. IfIsrael’s voice was still going to be heard in the collective pool of human thought the Church needed to discredit her testimony. And this is exactly what the Church has done.

 

The Church presentedIsrael’s rejection of Jesus as a turning point in the history of the nation from whom she stole all her blessings. The authors of the Christian Scriptures and the early Church Fathers taught the world that Jews and Judaism can no longer be trusted. For years the Church has taught that she alone is the trueIsrael. While this teaching is not as widespread as it used to be, the distrust ofIsraelthat this teaching has generated is still firmly in place. The Church has taught the world that the word “Pharisee” is a synonym for “hypocrisy”. John’s Jesus taught the world that the Jews are children of the Devil and as such, are the living incarnation of falsehood. The Church exerted herself to discredit the testimony of the Jew.

 

The Jew was trustworthy enough to establish the credibility of her covenant with God, her prophets and her Messianic vision. But now that the Church has all of these safely in her own arms, the Jew has become the quintessential liar.

 

The Jewish Scriptures

 

The Jewish Bible is a document of incredible power. The universal appeal of this collection of books is unmatched in the literary history of mankind. The searing rebuke of Jeremiah, the Messianic vision presented by Isaiah and the simple trust in God of Psalmist have touched the hearts of men for thousands of years. The Church has exploited the power of the Jewish Bible with the claim that she alone is the complete fulfillment of the hope and promise expressed in its pages.

 

The problem that the Church faced was that the Jewish Bible exposes her flaws. If one approaches the Jewish Bible from within the context of the pre-Christian world-view, which is actually the only true context of the Jewish Bible, then every doctrine of the Church will be revealed as a lie. According to the Jewish Bible, the deification of any inhabitant of God’s earth is idolatry, the greatest rebellion against God. The Jewish Bible NEVER associates forgiveness from sin with faith in an individual. The Messianic hope presented by the Jewish prophets includes all of mankind and is no way limited to the members of one denomination of Christianity or another. And the Messiah of the Jewish Bible will direct everyone’s devotion to the One Creator of heaven and earth; not to himself.

 

The Church has used several strategies in her effort to neutralize the message of the Hebrew prophets. For many long centuries, the Catholic popes simply forbade the reading of the book. Another tactic that the Church has used to silence the Jewish prophets was by pointing to her own clergy as the sole interpreters of the text. These techniques were quite effective in their time.

 

For various sociological reasons, these two strategies are no longer as popular as they used to be. The Church still has two other methods that it uses to mitigate the message of the Jewish Bible. The first of these strategies is the creation of the Christian Scriptures. The Church disregarded the simple fact that the same standard that was used to determine the canonical status of the books of the Jewish Bible would have decidedly INVALIDATED the books of the Christian Scriptures. Ignoring this basic truth, the Church placed her books side by side with the books of the Jewish prophets. The Church took this strategy one step further and renamed the Jewish Scripture with the disparaging title; “Old Testament”. The thrust of this strategy is that no-one will dream of reading the Jewish Scriptures with a pre-Christian world-view. The mind of the reader is predisposed to believe that the story of the “Old Testament” is not complete until he or she has read through to the Christian book of Revelations. And this strategy creates a preconception about the Jewish Scriptures as if it is a book that has “had its day” and is no longer relevant to a world that has progressed above and beyond.

 

The second strategy employed by the Church in her effort to silence the voice of the Jewish prophets is by misrepresenting the literary structure of the Bible. As it is with any work of literature, the Jewish Bible contains highlights and climaxes. The prophets used various literary devices to emphasize certain events and certain teachings. Having a storyline slowly build up towards a certain event is one device used by the prophetic narrator to direct the reader’s attention to a given point (e.g. the Sinai revelation in Exodus 20). Repeating a teaching again and again is another literary device that the prophets used to underline a given teaching (e.g. the universal principles of justice and charity). Pointing back to a specific teaching, reiterating and elaborating, is yet another method that the prophets used to help us see the importance of a given truth (e.g. the Sinai revelation as per Deuteronomy 4).

 

The Church ignores the literary structure that is inherent in the Bible itself. Instead the Church presents its own version of the “highlights” of the Jewish Bible. These are passages or verses that, when read out of context, seem to support one Christian doctrine or another. The Church promotes the non-contextual reading of these solitary passages as if they were the central teachings of the Jewish Bible. The Church’s exaltation of the alleged “virgin birth” of Isaiah7:14, is a perfect illustration of this strategy. A contextual reading of this verse will reveal that this prophecy has nothing to do with the Messiah and a correct translation will prove that there is no virgin mentioned in the verse. But in complete disregard for the literary structure of the Jewish Bible, the Church has for centuries pointed to this verse as if it were the climax of human history. By exalting this passage, the Church has successfully distorted the literary landscape of the Jewish Bible in the minds of many readers.

 

Through the implementation of these various strategies, the Church has endeavored to silence the voice of the Jewish prophets.

 

The Messianic Hope

 

The Jewish prophets taught the world to hope for a brilliant future. Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah have inspired mankind to look forward to a day when nation shall not lift sword against nation and the lion will lie with the lamb. This powerful message of hope has also been exploited by the Church.

 

The Jewish prophets presented this vision of hope for all mankind (Isaiah 54:5; Zephaniah 3:9). There is not one verse in all of the Jewish Bible that can be misconstrued to read as if the glory of the Messianic future is limited to those who have faith in one individual or another. The Jewish Scriptures presents a vision of universal peace that encompasses all of humanity.

 

The Church took this vision of universal peace and taught the world that it can only be accessed in her pews. According to Christian theology, the glory of the Messianic era is reserved for those who have placed their faith in Jesus. The Church has taken the glorious promise that rightfully belongs to all of humanity and has attempted to make it her own.

 

The Relationship That Man Shares With God

 

Every human being is entitled to a relationship with the Creator. The deepest yearning of the human soul is a desire to connect to the Creator. The only true possession that remains eternally yours is the relationship that exists between you and your Creator. The Church has exploited this relationship in order to further her own agenda.

 

God’s kindness and mercy encompasses all of His creations (Psalm 145:9). The fact that God created man in His own image is an expression of God’s love and respect towards every man and woman (Genesis1:27). The gift of existence, the gift of sight, the ability to think, and all of the myriads of details that embrace every aspect of human life, all articulate God’s incredible love for every human. There is nothing closer to our soul than the love of the One who called it into being to begin with. All we need to do is to focus on the blessings, recognize how we did nothing to deserve them, and we will learn to feel each moment of existence as an embrace from a loving Father.

 

People have an unhealthy tendency to focus on the negative. We tend to magnify what we don’t have and minimize what God has granted to us. Our minds easily lose sight of the fact that our existence is an undeserved gift and we fail to see our blessings for what they are; expressions of God’s love. Developing a relationship with God requires that we overcome these negative tendencies and shift our focus to the positive. We must teach ourselves to acknowledge God’s goodness inherent in every breath of existence and build in ourselves an outlook of gratitude towards the true source of all goodness.

 

Man also has a tendency to question God’s love. As humans, we all fall short of our own expectations and we often find our minds focusing on these failings. We recognize that God is holy and pure and our sense of guilt casts a pall of doubt on our relationship with God. God directly addressed this confusion through the teachings of the Jewish prophets. The prophets taught that God does not spurn a heart that turns to him with sincerity (Psalm 51:19; 145:18). The prophets passed on God’s encouraging words that He accepts sincere repentance (Isaiah 55:7; Ezekiel18:21; 33:16; Jonah3:10).

 

The Church exploited man’s longing to connect to God. The Church also capitalized on the feelings of inadequacy that man encounters in his struggle to develop a relationship with God.

 

Instead of invalidating these feelings of inadequacy and instead of encouraging man to overcome the psychological barriers as did the Jewish prophets, the Church took the exact opposite approach. Not only did the Church validate any feelings of inadequacy that frustrate man’s attempt to connect with God; the Church elevated those feelings to the level of theological doctrines. Not only did the Church discourage man’s attempt to overcome the obstacles that are encountered in approaching God; the Church taught that these obstacles are insurmountable.

 

The Church presented the claim that faith in Jesus is the magical answer to the psychological barriers that man encounters in his search for God. In effect the Church has taught mankind that the only way to satisfy the innate human yearning for God is through devotion to Jesus. Christianity has spread the lie that man’s deepest need can only be purchased through the agency of Jesus. According to the teachers of Christianity one must fully commit his or her soul to Jesus in order to be allowed into a relationship with God.

 

Your relationship with your Creator is the only possession that belonged to you before you were born. The Church would have you believe that you must purchase that which is intrinsically yours by giving Jesus your very life and soul.

 

A Final Travesty

 

The spread of Christianity was facilitated through the combination of universal truths and her own false doctrines. Within the past century certain Churchmen have realized that one of their doctrines is hampering the propagation of Christianity in the minds and hearts of one specific community. They then developed a new hybrid, a fresh mixture of truth and falsehood that was designed to promote Christianity within the confines of this one specific community. This hybrid goes by the name “Messianic Judaism”.

 

The Church’s effort to discredit the testimony of the Jew (after robbing the Jew of his prophets, his Bible and his covenant with God) was a successful means of spreading Christianity amongst non-Jewish people. By teaching the Gentiles that the Jews are God-killers and liars, the Church effectively prevented the Gentiles from listening to the testimony of God’s witness which proclaims that Jesus is NOT the Messiah promised to the Jews. But this teaching had an opposite effect on the Jewish community. Even those Jews who had strayed far from the core principles of Judaism were repelled by the Christian vilification of their people. The secular Jew might not have appreciated his own religious heritage but he certainly could not buy the myth that his own people were the most evil race on earth. This same myth that discredited the Jew in the eyes of the Gentile, served to discredit the Church in the eyes of the Jew.

 

In an effort to reverse the effects of this teaching in the Jewish community, some Church teachers created a new mixture. Instead of defining Christianity over and against Judaism, these teachers repackaged Christianity and presented it as the “true Judaism”. These teachers eschewed the familiar symbols of the Church; the cross, the steeple, Sunday worship and even the Latinized name; Jesus. Instead they substituted Jewish symbols; the Star of David, the synagogue, Friday night services and a Hebraic “Yeshua”. Instead of deriding the Jewish religion and her culture, these Churchmen exalted these and claimed them as their own.

 

Some Churchmen have taken this tactic one step further. Not only have they expropriated the cultural trappings of Judaism for herself, but they also usurped the religious observances of Judaism. These Christians observe the Jewish Sabbath as defined by Jewish law and they present their observance as the “complete and true” Judaism.

 

This lie must be exposed.

 

The heart of Judaism is the truth that every inhabitant of this earth is equally subservient to the One God who is above all of nature. When the Pagans bowed to various forces from within the natural realm, the Jew stood apart. When the Romans were deifying their emperors, The Jew would not participate. When the Europeans exalted royalty and nobility to a higher plane of existence, the Jew insisted on the equality of all men. And when the Church exalted the person of Jesus, the Jew refused to join.

 

All of the observances of Judaism point to this great truth and all of the Jewish culture is built around this great truth; that all men are equal before their common Creator. For 2000 years the Church has used every tool at her disposal to eradicate this concept from the heart of the Jew. These include but are not limited to; stripping the Jew of every civil right, locking the Jew into crowded ghettoes, taxing the Jew into poverty, physical torture, forced expulsions and often-times even killing the Jew. The Jew has endured all of these in order to remain loyal to the great truth that God had planted in her heart; that no man is lord of another but that all are equally subject to God.

 

The observances of Judaism were preserved through the Jew who rejected the Church’s claims for Jesus. Those who observed the Jewish Sabbath for the past 2000 years did so as a testimony that One God created all men; including the Christian Jesus. Those brave men and women, who preserved Judaism under the most terrible circumstances, identified the Christian deification of Jesus as the very antithesis of everything that they stood for.

 

2000 years of Jewish history cries out to these Churchmen: “Cease and desist!” Don’t usurp those observances that we preserved with our very life-blood and exploit them as a means to confuse our children! We lived and died for one truth and for one truth only; that there is but One God who is the Father of us all. Don’t steal the outer trappings of our heritage in your criminal effort to shut out our testimony from the ears of our children.

 

Concluding Statement

 

Since its inception, Christianity has presented a mixture of truth and falsehood. Sincere people have been misled into thinking that the universal truths are only available in the pews of the Church. God-fearing men and women have failed to distinguish between the truths that belong to everyone and the packaging of lies that Christianity has wrapped around these truths. But as humanity is moved inexorably towards the Messianic era, the truth must be disentangled for the web of lies that the Church has woven around them.

 

Mankind will recognize that the universal principles of justice and charity did not originate with the Church and that they need not be acquired through the agency of the Church. Humanity will learn to appreciate the universal message of the Jew that does not allow for the deification of an inhabitant of God’s earth. Men and women will learn to read the Jewish Bible without the slant that the Church has put on that holy book. All will recognize that the Messianic hope is God’s plan for all of humanity and is not limited to the narrow circle of “believers”. And finally and most importantly; every human being will learn to love their Creator without the medium of devotion to a fellow subject of God.

 

May it happen speedily and in our days.

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in General | 140 Comments

Milk, Meat and Firstfruits

Posted on February 19, 2012 by yourphariseefriend

Exodus 23:19, 34:26

“The first-fruit of your land shall you bring to the house of the Lord your God; Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”

What is the connection between these two commandments? What does cooking a kid in its mother’s milk have to do with the bringing of first-fruits to the Temple?

When we turn to the passage that describes the bringing of the first-fruits (Deuteronomy 26:1-11), we see that the farmer praises God, not only for the first-fruits of the land but also for all of the history of Israel. The farmer goes back to Jacob and describes how God brought us out of Egypt and gave us this beautiful land. “And now” the farmer declares “I have brought the first-fruits of the land”.

Let’s get a reality check. For all we know this farmer may be an elderly man who has been bringing his first-fruits to the Temple every year. His father and grandfather before him may have been doing the same – as well as his grandfather’s grandfather. How does appreciation for the exodus relate to the yearly routine of bringing first-fruit to the Temple?

The answer is that in service of God there is no such thing as “routine”. Every day is a fresh start in service of God. All of the past, including the exodus from Egypt, was just a preparation for this moment. When the farmer brings his basket of first-fruits, he doesn’t see a monotonous repetition of “more of the same”. Instead he looks at a bright new future for which all of the past only serves as a preparation and a lead-up.

The mother’s milk represents the past. The kid represents the fresh new future. How often do we destroy the freshness of the moment by “cooking it” in the milk of the past? The Torah is teaching us a life-lesson. The past is here to nourish and to sustain the future – but not to “cook” it. The future is its own entity with its own flavor – don’t stifle it with the past.

This lesson is especially pertinent to our relationship with our children. Each child is its own world – the experience of the parents are here to give life-sustaining nourishment and guidance – but not to stifle the individuality of the child.

This lesson spills over into our every-day lives. Don’t let the pain/dreariness/failures of yesterday destroy today. Today will always be the most important day in your life – live it to its fullest.

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

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6

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

Thank You

Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Judaism | 4 Comments