Posted on 06/11/2019 8:45:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
For several decades, I have drawn attention to the Church’s historic persecution of the Jews in Jesus’ name. It is one of the ugliest and longest chapters in Church history, and it cannot be downplayed, forgotten, or ignored. With God’s help, I will continue to call out “Christian” antisemitism wherever I see it today. But I will not ignore Jewish persecution of Christians. It too must be called out.
In the Gospels, Jesus and His followers, all of them Jews, were persecuted by hypocritical Jewish leaders, ultimately leading to the Lord’s death on the cross. And that pattern continued in the Book of Acts, where the Jewish leadership stood in opposition to the message of Jesus the Messiah, sometimes persecuting His Jewish followers to the death (see Acts 7).
Some even stirred up trouble wherever these Messianic Jewish emissaries went to share the good news (see Acts 17), and this continued in the centuries that followed, with some documented cases of Jewish leaders siding with local efforts to persecute Christians.
Of course, no amount of Jewish persecution of Christians can justify the horrors inflicted on the Jewish people by professing Christians, including torture, exile, being forced into ghettos, being burned at the stake, being offered baptism or death, and much more.
And it is an open secret that the Nazis drew on Martin Luther’s antisemitic writings to help enflame German hatred against the Jews.
None of this can be denied, nor should it be denied. To the contrary, we must be ever mindful of this tragic history lest we repeat it in our day.
But, to say it again, when there is Jewish persecution of followers of Jesus, that must be called out as well, especially when it takes place in Israel.
It was a radical Jew who delivered a bomb, disguised as a holiday gift, to the house of Ami Ortiz, the son of Jewish Christian parents. He miraculously survived the bomb blast, which took place in 2008.
But this act, extreme as it was, was not in isolation.
As reported by Time Magazine in 2008, “Messianic Jews, as these Jews who believe in Jesus are called, number just a few in Israel — anywhere between 6,000 and 15,000 — but they provoke hatred all out of proportion to their meager numbers. Many orthodox Jews view them as traitors for joining the Christian faith, which for centuries has persecuted Jews. One Messianic Jew, Tzvi Sadan, a teacher and editor, recalls telling his father, a Holocaust survivor, that he had accepted Jesus as his savior. ‘My dad flipped out. He said that the SS guards in the camp had 'God Is With Us' written on their belts. He told me, “You've joined the enemy.” But he calmed down a bit when he saw my prayer shawl.’” (What Sadan means is that he didn’t stop being a Jew by following Jesus.)
Over the years, Messianic Jews have suffered different levels of persecution within Israel, although none so violent as the bomb attack on Ami Ortiz.
But there have been protests and even vandalism at Messianic Jewish meeting places, attempts to get some believers deported, and various threats and harassments.
Virtually all these acts are carried out by ultra-Orthodox Jews, who view “missionary” activity as diabolical, destructive, and dishonest. As some of these protestors once chanted outside of a large Messianic Jewish gathering I was attending in Israel, “Hitler wanted our bodies. You want our souls!”
Today, as the number of Messianic Jews in Israel has risen to about 30,000 and as the society at large is much more open to these Jewish believers in Jesus, opposition from ultra-Orthodox Jews continues to rise. (For my little run-in with some ultra-Orthodox protesters last year, see here and here.)
As my friend and colleague Ron Cantor reports from Israel (with a video link worth watching), “Believers attending a Messianic concert last week in Jerusalem were accosted by dozens of Orthodox Jewish protestors, who held a violent and chaotic riot for hours, calling the people ‘missionaries’ and ‘Nazis,’ and telling them to get out of Israel. They held up several signs saying, ‘Beware, Missionaries!’ in Hebrew. In Hebrew the world Missionary is a slur. Of course, we are not missionaries, but citizens of Israel.”
Again, I understand how these protesters view us. As a rabbi said to me decades ago, “Our ancestors died rather than believe what you believe. Yet, without coercion or pressure, you not only believe in Jesus, but you try to proselytize as well.”
But, to say this yet again, none of this justifies the actions of these protesters, who were held back by police.
Ron writes that, “Jenya Lempert and his teenage daughter were accosted by swarms of young men blowing whistles at excruciating pitches and linking arms to block the entrance into the concert hall.”
As Lampert told KNI News, “It was a pure act of hatred. They hate us, they were standing against us, they brought their minors as human shields.”
Indeed, Ron explains, “Orthodox protesters have been known to bring teens, who have more liberties than adults to break the law.”
But his response to all this is right on: “It is important to not get angry but pray. At the same time, understand that this is pure fanaticism and brainwashing of children. However, it only represents a tiny minority of Israelis.”
And how should Christians around the world respond to these harassing acts?
First, they should pray for the believers being persecuted, sending them a message that they are not alone.
Second, they should pray for the repentance of the persecutors, believing that there are many Sauls of Tarsus among them.
Third, as friends of Israel who appreciate the liberties that the nation affords its citizens, they should encourage the government to stand with those who are being persecuted to send a message the government will not tolerate this kind of behavior.
All that being said, my personal expectation is that the final generation – whenever that will be – will look a lot like the Gospels and Acts, except that in the end, there will be mass acceptance of Jesus by His own people, rather than mass rejection.
May the Lord turn the hearts of His people Israel!
Then why is the Talmud considered the highest book in Judaism, higher than even the Torah, like this passage from Erubin 21b, “My son, be more careful in the observance of the words of the Scribes than in the words of the Torah (Old Testament)”? After all, logically, the highest book in any religion would also be considered the most read and most disseminated within that religion, because it’s considered exceptionally vital to the religion’s existence.
And the existence of Kol Nidre, the Jewish equivalent of Taqiyya, leaves me with a lot of doubt there, unfortunately: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9443-kol-nidre/ Heck, Rabbi Tzvi Marx’s comment about there being two copies of the Talmud specifically to trick gentiles leaves me very wary.
And quite frankly, I’m a bit more trusting of Messianic Jews than I am Talmudic Jews, certainly a lot more trusting of Messianic Jews than to Communist Jews. And use common sense: Jesus forbade people from using deception, so why the heck would Jewish people “pretend” to be Jewish if they believed that Christ is the Messiah? Messianic Jews don’t even have membership towards various Christian churches, whether they be Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or even Coptic.
Besides, I never said I was against all religious Jews, just those who use the Talmud. There are plenty of Jews who stick with the Old Testament as well without even touching the Talmud, and those Jews, I do find trustworthy. There’s also the Ethiopian Jews. Also the Karaites, who eschew with the Talmud altogether and strictly go by the Old Testament. All those examples of Jews I find trustworthy.
By plenty, I meant a number of Jews. From what I gather, it seems to be a minority, however.
> Then why is the Talmud considered the highest book in Judaism, higher than even the Torah
It’s not. That is explicit heresy.
The Torah is the Word of God, divinely inspired. It’s why it’s been meticulously copied with exacting precision for thousands of years, with the slightest flaw sufficient reason to discard a copy.
It is unique in this respect. There is no other work with these properties of the Torah. All other religious works are the works of men - thus inherently flawed and non-authoritative.
There is an old saying about if you get two Jews in a room they will come out with five opinions, and it’s completely true.
Perhaps the most distinct element of Judaism vs. other major world religions is the lack of intermediary between oneself and God. Rabbis are just facilitators, they aren’t intermediaries like priests generally are - the function is more like a librarian.
So for anyone to say that a work of man is on standing with, above, or even comparable to the Word of God... there is no support for that in the Torah, I can assure you of this.
I’m afraid that a lot of the information you are getting on the Talmud is just plain false. I suggest you source the quotes you find, to see if you can actually find them in the Talmud. I have done this repeatedly and found these types of quotes source to hardcore jihadi Muslims in almost every case.
The Torah, yes, I agree with you that it is indeed divinely inspired. Unfortunately, the Talmud is a completely different story. And I actually gave you a quote from the Babylonic Talmud specifically. And then there’s the Jewish Encyclopedia, which also verifies many of the claims in the Talmud (not to mention was written and compiled by Jews), including the rather heinous treatment of Jesus and Mary.
And somehow, I’m extremely doubtful “facilitators”/”librarians” would outright state they ignore heavenly voices after Mt. Sinai and even state that God must submit to the majority vote of the Rabbis as if the latter’s powerless before them, and I’m certainly doubtful “facilitators”/”librarians”, heck, “intermediaries” even, would be able to outright beat God in a debate, which unfortunately is what Babylonic Talmud Bava Metzia 59b stated. And to add insult to injury, this webpage which made its existence painfully clear is written by a Rabbi. Lipman, I believe his name was: http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/salafi/RabbiDebateGodAndGodAdmitsDefeat.htm And I’m extremely doubtful Lipman is a jihadi Muslim. Same goes for Nicholas of Donin, who was a Jewish convert to Catholicism back in the 1200s, and who was responsible for exposing the messages of the Talmud to the Catholic Church, or Yossi Gurvitz even. Even Rabbi Tzvi Marx, who outright admitted in the May/June 1994 edition of Tikkun: A Bi-Monthly Jewish Critique that they deliberately make two versions of the Talmud specifically to trick gentiles, most certainly couldn’t have been a jihadi Muslim. Not to mention Shmuel Safrai, as well as R.C. Musaph-Andriesse’s From Torah to Kabbalah: A Basic Introduction to the Writings of Judaism. Unless you give a good argument outright refuting all the above Jewish characters’ testimonies, I don’t think we can go any further regarding this.
You’re making the same mistake the other guy is making, thinking that human beings constitute authority.
Don’t know who that Lipman guy is, and don’t care, and don’t have to care. He has no authority. He has an opinion. Everybody’s got an opinion, and any arbitrary Jew in general will have two and a half opinions on any given subject.
That’s kind of the point of Judaism - we’re “chosen” to have to figure this out for our flawed selves, with no authorities other than the Torah itself to give us certainty. So we speculate, in every direction, looking for the truth.
Just stop. You’ve missed the whole point of the conversation which is to make distinct religious Judaism from ethnicity for the purposes of evaluating the validity of the “Messianic” brand.
You know that statement you made essentially invalidates the Bible, right? God WROTE the Bible, so it’s not up to us to have opinions on what it entails. God has a top-down approach, as even his son Jesus said when he condemned the Mishna, which was effectively the prototype to the Talmud. Put another way, God dictates, we shut up and listen, put up with his grandstanding, can’t talk back, certainly can’t make any differing views from him, even with our free will. In other words, opinions do NOT exist under God barring his own, his word is law. He dictates truth to us, while we must swallow it.
> God WROTE the Bible, so it’s not up to us to have opinions on what it entails.
This is exactly backwards.
It’s our responsibility to figure it out and that necessarily entails having opinions on what it says and why. We are not divine and any conclusions we come to are necessarily impermanent and imperfect, but at the same time it is the only tool we have to understand the Word of God.
That’s what being the “chosen people” means. That’s the meaning of Jacob’s struggle with the angel. It’s our responsibility to struggle to understand the nature of God, and thus of ourselves, made in His image.
Hence the proliferation of opinions. If you’re struggling to understand something, you’ll analyze the issue from every angle you can, and sometimes you’ll come to different conclusions depending on what angle you come at it from.
You seem like some sort of radical fundamentalist. Stop harassing me and go away.
What is the difference between Jews and Gentiles?
Difference Between Jews and Gentiles. Generally speaking Jews are those who follow Judaism, while all the others, non-Jewish people, are known as Gentiles. The descendents of the patriarch Israel are known as Jews, while the Gentiles are those who worshipped Jehovah according to the patriarchal system.
****************
Strange both Jews and Christians worship Yahweh (Jehovah, El, Eloheim, Jehovah).
How the world has changed.
In the early days of “The Way”, later known as Christianity. The argument then was that a person could not be a “Christian” without becoming a “Jew” first. Now the argument is that a person cannot be a “Jew” if a “Christian”.
When Paul (Saul) came to the Temple as an observant “Jewish Rabbi” (he had shaved his head and made a vow) the crowd that condemned him was made up of both Messianic Jews and Jews who did not accept the Messiahship of Yeshua. Both called for his arrest.
Was he any less Jewish? The body of believers known as “Followers of The Way” were observant Jews, except that they believed Yeshua was Messiah. Did this protect them from Roman rule? Did this make them any less Jewish? Does believing that the Messiah has come, or is coming make anyone any less Jewish?
It was a Roman Caesar who declared Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire 380 AD, after centuries of persecution. It was a Roman Caesar who dictated that Christians could no longer celebrate Passover, or the other Feast Days of Judaism, and must worship on Sunday as the day of resurrection. It was a paganized church that molded Christianity into its current form.
The current embodiment of Judaism evolved following the destruction of the Second Temple, and seems to revolve around the Talmud, rather than Torah, except in the case of Orthodox Judaism.
What both sides forget is that for Biblical Prophecy to be fulfilled, history had to follow the course that has brought us to the current reestablishment of Israel as a nation, and the coming of Messiah. In Jewish eyes the first coming. In Christian eyes the second.
Saul (Paul) cautioned Christians that they were grafted into the tree of Abraham. They are a branch, not rootstock. They could be plucked out just as easily as some of the branches of that tree has been done in the past.
He made it clear that “Gentiles” could be saved through Messiah, but that once saved, both Jews and Christians worship the same Creator, through the same Spirit. He also made it clear that once the Messiah made his appearance, and been acknowledge by both Jew and christians, that all things including the Messiah’s authority are returned to Yahweh.
It is through Judaism alongside Christianity, that the entire world has been blessed. For it was through the sacrifice of a Jewish Messiah that there are billions of believers in the God of Abraham, Issaic, and Jacob, alongside those who follow Judaism.
Unfortunately throughout history those is power in both camps have failed to put Biblical principles into practice, and have used their authority to persecute.
That’s what the article was about.
The two camps, Judaism and Christianity, look at each other as being in error. At different times through history each had the power to persecute the other. Just as within Christianity there are denominational differences, also within Judaism there are denominations (Reconstructionist, Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative).
All the different groups have different interpretations of what is truth and promote their version of truth, while waiting for the truth to be revealed.
Unfortunately there are those who use would rather accentuate our differences to bring division. The article is about that division.
We should celebrate the return of our Jewish brethren to Israel and its fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. We should strengthen our bonds to stand together, and reject divisive arguments about what is and is not a believer in Yehovah. Each group should pray for the truth to be fulfilled and pray for each other.
Any author that attempts to write out the Tetragrammaton in such a manner is an abomination and completely ignorant of Judaism.
No, God dictates what the Bible says, his word is law, so we have absolutely no say what his word is other than to follow it like robots. Proliferation of opinions essentially means “God says murder is not okay, yet the rabbi says it’s perfectly alright.” It’s amoral, does not allow for any consistent truth, or any of that stuff, and Jesus made it VERY clear in Matthew that such is NOT what God wants, and that if anything, God wanted only his own will to prevail, and that we slavishly carry out his will without thinking. Proliferation of opinions is the proliferation of lies. If it’s not fact, it’s not truth, and if it’s not truth, it’s lies. There’s only one truth, and you must adhere to that truth without question.
And of COURSE we’re not divine and imperfect, which is PRECISELY the reason why we must obey his directives like robots do to their masters. We only exist to serve Him like a master and a slave. God does NOT tolerate relativism, which is EXACTLY what you’re proposing.
If God wanted us to act like robots, He would have made us robots.
God’s commands in the Torah are not arbitrary doctrine. They are survival and prosperity instructions, a user manual for human beings. When God says, for example, that you should’t sleep with your sister, He is instructing us against behavior that risks creating defective humans. When He says don’t lie with a man as with a woman, He is instructing against behavior that leads to disease and death. When He says to keep the Sabbath, He is telling us that a periodic day rest is good for the human condition.
Not only are these commands wholly unambiguous, they are quite verifiable as healthy behavior.
We’re not at all to follow these commands “like robots”. We’re to come to an understanding that observing His Will is good for us and to choose to follow it, willingly.
Yes, actually, they ARE an arbitrary doctrine. They wouldn’t even EXIST if they weren’t arbitrary. We are to obey him in absolute fear, because he will destroy us if we don’t.
And just because he gave us free will doesn’t mean he doesn’t want us to obey him like robots. Let’s not forget, there have been plenty of people who are so in love with their own power that they deliberately allow revolts against themselves simply so they can flex their muscles and even crush their opposition’s morale as a result, like Infinite here: https://youtu.be/Rx_ap3krKX4 Or also the Patriots from Metal Gear Solid 2 from these two scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrVThXFnE1s&t=196s; https://youtu.be/eKl6WjfDqYA And those guys definitely ultimately desired to control everyone, have everyone act like robots. And bear in mind, they dealt with revolts, in the case of the Patriots explicitly engineered those revolts in such a manner that those doing the revolt don’t even realize they’re playing right into their hands until it’s far too late, meaning they obviously had free will (can’t have rebellions without free will after all).
No, God gave us those rules specifically because he ultimately thirsted to control all of us. I know this because plenty of other omnipotent and omniscient beings did exactly that out of a drive for power. Rules only exist for control. That’s also why he had Jesus die on the Cross and revived in three days, to bring us back under his sole control. Heck, were he fully honest with Abraham, he would have not only rejected the whole barter game precisely because, being omniscient, he knows that barring Lot and his family no one in Sodom and Gomorrah were innocent, he’d go out of his way to telekinetically assault him with various images showing just HOW depraved the cities were, leaving Abraham a broken mess as a result, and explicitly getting off on his utterly breaking Abraham before teleporting Lot and his daughters to safety.
I’m not here to argue doctrine. I’m just clearing up misconceptions about what Judaism is. That job being done I think we’re done here.
Yikes.
Bolus, just me; I am so not sweet. The Lord God takes any from a feather to a 2x4 to a tornado to get me back on track. Every. Single. Day.
It is not out of love that I speak, when I speak of Christ.
It is out of true fear and trembling and awe of the love that He, Christ has for those that are still lost and for the love He has forvHis Father.
Me? I am a selfish, flawed human. So please, allow me to disabuse of any idea of me wanting to kill you onto anything.
I do think I muslims about your arrogance. It is more like sheer rage. A far deeper emotion. Someone, most likely more than one someone...hurt you. He, she, or they cut you to the inner core and you have never healed.
Your intellect is great. At one point I spoke French and English. Because of memory issues I now struggle with just English and have almost zero in the way the French language left in my thought process. I admit it gets a tad frustrating reaching for words that are no longer there. And, sometimes a bit on the funny side.
I am glad there are people like you and my beloved husband who have a grasp of languages.
As a Christian it is my duty and joy to follow the Lord’s instructions, even if painful at the same time. That would include protecting you.
There are no silly dark games in the Jewish faith as laid down by the Lord God. The instructions given were always for His purpose even if we humans did not see them.
Those that would kill or harm Jews in the name of Christ have to answer for that at the correct time.
Another thought.... Why are you or the Jews you know not interested in enlightening the Christians or even non-Christians about your faith? The Lord God did make you His people. Is it fear that He will not be able to be seen in your actions or words?
I think it is a personal thing.. Prior to retiring I had many discussions with a Jewish man and found his information to be thorough and thought provoking. A great regret I have to this day is never asking him if the Passover is tied to a full moon. I was never sure if I could ask that question without sounding like an idiot.
Perhaps another Jewish FReeper could answer that question for me.
I shall also admit prior to coming to know my Lord God through the love of his Son Jesus, I would spit out angry, even angrier words when I read, or heard a Christian.
Every.
Single.
Time.
Please, accept my apology for the incorrect typing of your name bolus.
It was not done purposefully.
You present a very thoughtful post. However, it seems that you present Christianity and Judaism in some ways as spiritual equivalents. The elephant in the room that you fail to address is that Christians are walking in light, grace and truth through their faith in Christ. Non-Christian, including non-Christian Jews are not. Without Christ, it is impossible for a person to walk in light, grace and truth.
Our heart's cry should be that all come to the knowledge of Christ, the Jew first! To pretend or suggest that Judaism can somehow bring a person to Life and Salvation is contrary to Christ and Christianity. If a person can be saved through Judaism - Christ died in vain!
"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." John 5:45
"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law (of Moses), but by the faith of Jesus Christ, ....that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." - Gal. 2:16
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