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feedingtheflockministry · 9 months

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Four Criteria the Messiah Must Fulfill

by Jews for Jesus | July 01 2000

So what’s the deal with the Messiah? For many, the Messiah figure seems like an ancient Jewish version of Superman—a childhood hero on whom most of us have long since given up. But according to the Talmud and the Jewish Scriptures the Messiah is not only real, but should have arrived a long time ago.

Maybe a Messiah who never comes is not such a big deal, but a God Who breaks His promises is a very big deal. The detailed messianic timetable in Daniel 9 allows us to explore solutions to these questions. Not only is there much more to be known about the Messiah, but we can know exactly when to expect him!

Fact One: The Messiah would arrive in a certain time frame.

The details of when Messiah will arrive are written in the book of Daniel. This prophet lived during the time of our exile in Babylon and received a vision that the Messiah would come 483 years after the command to restore Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple:

From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an Anointed One [ad mashiach], the ruler [nagid], will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with a plaza and a moat, but in difficult times. (Daniel 9:25, CBS)

The “clock” on these 69 “weeks” (units of seven years) began ticking when Artaxerxes issued a decree to Nehemiah to rebuild the Temple and restore Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2:1-8). While other decrees went out, this was the only one that involved both the Temple and Jerusalem. History records this took place in Nisan (March/April) of 444 B.C.E. That would mean the Messiah would appear by 33 C.E. History does not record anyone, other than Yeshua (Jesus), who was from that time period and claimed to be the Messiah.

Fact Two: The Messiah would come before the destruction of the Second Temple.

Daniel predicted that after the appearance of Messiah, “…the people of a prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary” (Daniel 9:26, JPS). We know that occurred when Titus’ Roman legions marched on Jerusalem in 70 C.E., destroying both the city and the Temple. The Talmud teaches that at that time people believed that the time of Messiah had already come, but because of the sins of the nation the messianic kingdom was withheld at the time it should have arrived.

The school of Eliyahu taught: Six thousand years is the duration of the world. Two thousand of the six thousand years are characterized by chaos; two thousand years are characterized by Torah, from the era of the Patriarchs until the end of the mishnaic period; and two thousand years are the period of the coming of the Messiah. That is the course that history was to take, but due to our sins that time frame increased. The Messiah did not come after four thousand years passed, and furthermore, the years that elapsed since then, which were to have been the messianic era, have elapsed. (Sanhedrin 97a and b [emphasis added])

Other passages support the understanding that the Messiah would come while the Temple was still standing. The psalm is one of the Hallel Psalms which praises God for His deliverance of Israel and of Israel’s leader, the king. Israel was rejected by its enemies, as was its king.

Hoshienu—Save now, I pray, O Lord; O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We have blessed you from the house of the Lord [emphasis added]. (vv. 25,26)

The only way that they could bless the Messiah from the house of the Lord was if the Temple was still standing! Ironically, these are the same words the Jewish people used to greet Yeshua when he rode into Jerusalem the week before Passover (Matthew 21:9–12).

Haggai, who was in Jerusalem as the Second Temple was being built, made the messianic prediction that the “glory of this last temple is to be greater than that of the first” (2:9).1 And Malachi confirmed it: “Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his Temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come” (3:1). Twelfth century Jewish scholar, Rabbi David Kimchi (also known as Radak), equated Malachi’s messenger of the covenant with the Messiah.2

According to Daniel, the Temple would not only be standing at Messiah’s appearance, but it would be destroyed soon after. That Temple, which was originally built by Ezra and beautified by Herod, was where Yeshua did most of his teaching and claimed to be the Messiah. The New Testament records the painful words of Yeshua to those who spoke of how beautiful the Temple looked after its refurbishing under Herod: “These things which you see—the days will come in which not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.”3 Yeshua was pointing to Daniel’s prophecy being fulfilled. Less than 40 years later the destruction of the Temple was so thorough that, to this day, the exact location of the sanctuary is unknown.

Fact Three: The Messiah’s lineage could only be identifiable while the Temple stood.

The coming of the Messiah had another time constraint: it was connected to his descent from the tribe of Judah.

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; [emphasis mine] and to Him shall be the obedience of the people. (Genesis 49:10)

This well-recognized messianic prophecy indicated that Judah was to retain its identity until Shiloh (one of the names for the Messiah according to rabbinical literature) was to come.

Apropos the Messiah, the Gemara asks: What is his name? The school of Rabbi Sheila says: Shiloh is his name, as it is stated: “Until when Shiloh shall come.” (Sanhedrin 98b)

According to the book of Ezra (1:5-8), Judah’s position was maintained throughout the 70 years of captivity in Babylon. It was also intact back in the Land, until the Romans made the kingdom of Judah a Roman province. While there was a provincial government in place, about 50 years later (in 70 c.e.) that too ended.

Not only was the Messiah to be from the lineage of Judah, but more specifically from the house of David: “I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David: ‘Your seed I will establish forever, And build up your throne to all generations’” (Psalm 89:3-4 NKJV). This messianic prophecy clearly refers to a descendant of David. Proof of such lineage was destroyed when the Temple was destroyed.

And while we do not have the Temple records, we do have the record of Yeshua’s family tree in the accounts of his life by both Luke and Matthew. They both identify that he is from the house of David. We don’t know anyone else who lived at that time and claimed to be the Messiah, who is descended from the tribe of Judah and the house of David, apart from Yeshua.

Fact Four: The Messiah would be cut off.

The Daniel prophecy (9:26) says that after the seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, the Messiah would be cut off, but not for himself. This phrase “cut off” meant to be killed or destroyed, often used in the Tanakh to describe how a sacrificial animal was ritually slaughtered (Gen. 15:18; Jer. 34:18).

The idea that the Messiah would die was not new to Judaism. Isaiah wrote of one who would suffer and die for the sins of the people: “…For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.”4 Psalm 22 graphically portrays death by crucifixion, a method of execution not known to the author writing one thousand years before Yeshua was crucified.

Could it have happened just as Daniel so carefully predicted? Counting 483 years after Artaxerxes’ decree would bring us to 33 c.e. The Temple was destroyed in 70 c.e. That leaves a window of 37 years in which the Messiah from the tribe of Judah and the house of David could come. Not only that, but he was to die a violent death at that time.

Has Messiah Already Come?

God promised our people a Messiah, and He gave us a way of computing the time he’d be coming. Think about it. If Daniel is right and the Messiah came before the destruction of the Second Temple, that means we have to admit that the Messiah has already come. And if he’s already come, then who is he?

He had to arrive before 33 C.E, while the Temple was still standing, needed to be an identifiable descendant of David, and would be killed before the Temple was destroyed. The details of these facts together present some of the strongest evidence that he has in fact already come. The only person who fits that description is Yeshua from Nazareth.

Yes, for a Jewish person to consider the idea that Jesus might be the Messiah seems extreme. But every single one of us has been there and we’ve all come to believe that Jesus is exactly who he claimed to be.

If you’re unsure, why not ask God? The same God who communicated to us about when the Messiah would come and who he would be wants to reveal the truth to you, but it requires an open heart. He says, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3). Do you have the courage to call out to Him?

#jews #jewish #judaism #hebrew #hebrew bible #scriptures #israel #messiah #finding the truth #truth #just the facts

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helladirections · 27 days

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What do u think of the phrase “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free”? Apparently it’s antisemitic and I wanted ur opinion

Short answer: Yes, mostly.

Long answer: below the cut. I need to preface with a few things:

My statement on the war is the same as it has always been. Dying is bad, I am concerned about people living in imminent danger (including people I know and people I don't). Also, I have always been for a two state solution, human rights, self determination, etc. for everybody.

There's a narrative about how it's not necessarily the responsibility of a person to explain what is / isn't offensive to their culture / identity, which is valid. But most of my Jewish community is very into educating others, and I'd rather you come to me than not at all.

There's an old saying, "2 Jews, 3 opinions." So don't take what I have to say as the end all be all. Also, while I've spent a lot of time intentionally educating myself on this issue (especially beyond what they just teach us growing up), I have never claimed to be an expert.

Resources you might be interested in at the bottom.

Like most things in Judaism and surrounding modern day Israel, this answer can be a bit complicated when going into the full context. So please bear with me. And remember that one of our main texts (Talmud) is a tiny section of Torah surrounded by a giant page of two ancient rabbis literally arguing with each other. Please don't be mad that the answer isn't super easy.

First, a bit of history.

Claims to the land: Both Jews and Palestinians have ancestral claims to the piece of land that we call modern Israel. There's really not a way to argue around that, nor should anyone. In ancient times, Jews / Israelites / Hebrews were not the only people to be living there. Sometimes they lived in peace with others, sometimes they were at war. (As was typical for the time period). Up until about the time of the 1948 UN resolution, there wasn't really a concept of "Palestinians" as a specifically Arab people. Palestine was just one of the names used for the land, in addition to Israel, Zion, and others.

Theology: Jews have religious texts claiming that Israel is our homeland given by Gd. Much (but not all) of the religious context actually comes directly from the story of Passover, a holiday which is starting on Monday night. Jews were slaves in Egypt, Pharoah was bad, 10 plagues, parting of the Red Sea, 40 years in the desert, Israel. Etc. Do I think that this should actually matter in a modern day political / civil conflict? No. But I think it's worth mentioning for context because some people think it is relevant.

Religious Spaces: Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have highly important landmarks around what is now Israel.

Jews in the land: Although the Jews were as a whole kicked out of Israel in the post Temple period (after the second Temple was destroyed, leaving only the Western Wall that we have now), a portion of Jews remained in the area. Additionally, there has been a pretty through line of belief that Jews would some day be back in that land. (Also Passover: at the end of the service we say "next year in Jerusalem!") Zionism - the belief that there should be a modern state of Israel, has always existed in some form, although sometimes not using that name.

Modern Political Agreements: There were some phases of individual Jewish communities going into the land and building what is now Tel Aviv, parts of Jerusalem, etc. Then there was the British Mandate. I forget the timeline, but there were multiple international offers to give Jews a piece of land was smaller than what Israel is now, or didn't even include Jewish holy sites, and from my knowledge, most of the Jewish leaders at those times were ready to accept anything they were offered.

Then after the Holocaust, there were millions of displaced Jews with nowhere to go. One of the primary reasons why the UN established the modern state of Israel was to address that problem - No one wanted to let them in, they didn't want to go anywhere random, and a general sense that there had to be a place that Jews could go to a be safe if something like the Holocaust were to happen again. That UN resolution was in 1948. There has been on and off war in the region since well before 1948, but the day after that resolution, all hell broke loose.

Gaza & Hamas: A lot of progress has been made since 1948. Israel has peace treaties with many Arab countries, Egypt being a prime example. Most relevant to this question and this moment in time is that in 2005, Israel left Gaza. The Israeli government displaced tons of Jewish & non Jewish Israelis to give that land to Palestinians. After leaving, Gaza was left to govern itself. The government that was chosen was Hamas. Hamas is not really a government and does not look after its people, its goal is not to govern, but to destroy Israel. And not only to destroy Israel because it is the political entity, but because it is the Jewish state specifically.

Now, the actual phrase

Meaning of From The River to The Sea: This phrase directly references from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. It calls to completely eliminate the existence of the modern, democratic, Jewish state of Israel, and replace it with a modern, most likely undemocratic and led by Hamas, state of Palestine.

Also: This catchy chant was created and continues to be pushed by people who are antisemitic and want to destroy not only modern Israel, but see all Jews as inherently evil.

However: It's a catchy chant. People want peace, human rights, and self determination, just as I said above. If all the people around you are claiming to want those same things, and this is the catchy chant that has become part of the brand, it makes sense to join in on it.

Plus: From the the river to the sea, no one should be oppressed, deprived of human rights, or living in imminent danger. Dying is bad.

So what does that all mean?

One of the major reasons why modern Israel exists is for the protection of the Jewish people. One of the (many) major reasons why Palestinians do not have a modern state is because Hamas and other Palestinian leadership have refused to negotiate with Israel and have only ever called for its complete and total destruction. Hamas has always called for destruction through violent means not just because Israel is currently there, but because Israel is Jewish.

So my "final answer": The chant was created by, is in line with, and supports movements which not only seek to eliminate the modern state of Israel, but do so through violent and destructive means specifically because it is Jewish. Therefore, in my opinion and that of most of the Jewish community, From The River To The Sea Palestine Will Be Free is an antisemitic slogan.

Furthermore, regardless of if the slogan is defined formally as antisemitic or not, it often accompanies people and actions which make Jews, including myself, feel unsafe.

That being said, there have always been Jewish voices calling for the elimination of Israel. After all, 2 Jews, 3 Opinions. And, many, if not most, people who repeat that phrase don't know the full history and don't intend to be antisemitic - the Pro Palestinian movement has done a wonderful job at branding around human rights.

Some more of my opinions, just for the record if I still managed to have your attention.

Just because you disagree with a government or the way a country was formed, does not mean the country does not have a right to exist. I disagree with the American government almost all the time, and the founding of this country relied on abusing BIPOC. But America is here, and so we deal with it and try to make the best of it.

I hate Netanyahu. I always have. My grandpa, who used to like him, now hates him as much as I do. We talked last night about how he is making it so difficult to be Jewish around the world right now.

My definition of the word Zionism: The belief that modern Israel has a right to exist as a democratic Jewish state.

My perfect version of that land: People stop killing each other, everyone has the right to self governance, universal human rights, everyone has safe access to their own holy sites. I think the most likely way to get there is through some sort of two state solution. I do not know what the lines look like.

Israel policy and politics used to be a hobby for me, something I cared about and found interesting. It was also an entry point into my political career. Then it was my job. Now it's not fun and I do try to avoid it because I get too emotional and I can't really do anything about it anyway. I said Netanyahu is making it hard to be Jewish anywhere in the world, because diaspora Jews are constantly being blamed for the actions of an independent country. It gets hard.

I have generally avoided talking about October 7th, and the ongoing war. That is because there are images from that day that I cannot unsee. My intrusive thoughts are those images. It's not healthy for me to be plagued by that constantly.

You may have read me write about this before, but I know a lot of people in Israel right now. My best friend and her son - my nephew, live just west of Jerusalem in a small Orthodox community, which means it sometimes takes days for me to get responses from her after a big event, especially if it overlaps with Shabbat or another holiday. I check in with her just a couple of days ago though, and she said she's doing well and she feels safe.

Resources you might be interested in:

ADL on From The River to The Sea AJC on From The River to The Sea AP on From The River to The Sea

History.com overview of Israel history MyJewishLearning overview of Israel history US State Department on the creation of Israel in 1948 Brittanica on history & conflict in Israel

Anyway, I hope this answers your question, I'm sorry it was so long, and I'm aware that I'm about to get some hateful comments. If you are going to send me a hateful anon, just know that I'm going to block you, then check my blocked list, and know who you are. I'm not going to sacrifice my mental health and stability over people who don't understand the full context of what they are talking about and choose to just attack with hate.

#beep #yo #this got long but i think it's all important #dying is bad #I hope this answered the question #i know im about to get hate. but im just gonna keep reblogging harry and living my best life

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yieldfruit · 2 years

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Q: Did Jesus Really Exist?

A: Typically, when this question is asked, the person asking qualifies the question with “outside of the Bible.” We do not grant this idea that the Bible cannot be considered a source of evidence for the existence of Jesus. The New Testament contains hundreds of references to Jesus Christ. There are those who date the writing of the Gospels to the second century A.D., more than 100 years after Jesus’ death. Even if this were the case (which we strongly dispute), in terms of ancient evidences, writings less than 200 years after events took place are considered very reliable evidences. Further, the vast majority of scholars (Christian and non-Christian) will grant that the Epistles of Paul (at least some of them) were in fact written by Paul in the middle of the first century A.D., less than 40 years after Jesus’ death. In terms of ancient manuscript evidence, this is extraordinarily strong proof of the existence of a man named Jesus in Israel in the early first century A.D.

It is also important to recognize that in A.D. 70, the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and most of Israel, slaughtering its inhabitants. Entire cities were literally burned to the ground. We should not be surprised, then, if much evidence of Jesus’ existence was destroyed. Many of the eyewitnesses of Jesus would have been killed. These facts likely limited the amount of surviving eyewitness testimony of Jesus.

Considering that Jesus’ ministry was largely confined to a relatively unimportant area in a small corner of the Roman Empire, a surprising amount of information about Jesus can be drawn from secular historical sources. Some of the more important historical evidences of Jesus include the following:

The first-century Roman Tacitus, who is considered one of the more accurate historians of the ancient world, mentioned superstitious “Christians” (from Christus, which is Latin for Christ), who suffered under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. Suetonius, chief secretary to Emperor Hadrian, wrote that there was a man named Chrestus (or Christ) who lived during the first century (Annals15.44).

Flavius Josephus is the most famous Jewish historian. In his Antiquities he refers to James, “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” There is a controversial verse (18:3) that says, “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats....He was [the] Christ...he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.” One version reads, “At this time there was a wise man named Jesus. His conduct was good and [he] was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who became his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.”

Julius Africanus quotes the historian Thallus in a discussion of the darkness that followed the crucifixion of Christ (Extant Writings, 18).

Pliny the Younger, in Letters 10:96, recorded early Christian worship practices including the fact that Christians worshiped Jesus as God and were very ethical, and he includes a reference to the love feast and Lord’s Supper.

The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a) confirms Jesus’ crucifixion on the eve of Passover and the accusations against Christ of practicing sorcery and encouraging Jewish apostasy.

Lucian of Samosata was a second-century Greek writer who admits that Jesus was worshiped by Christians, introduced new teachings, and was crucified for them. He said that Jesus’ teachings included the brotherhood of believers, the importance of conversion, and the importance of denying other gods. Christians lived according to Jesus’ laws, believed themselves to be immortal, and were characterized by contempt for death, and renunciation of material goods.

Mara Bar-Serapion confirms that Jesus was thought to be a wise and virtuous man, was considered by many to be the king of Israel, was put to death by the Jews, and lived on in the teachings of His followers.

Then we have all the Gnostic writings (The Gospel of Truth, The Apocryphon of John, The Gospel of Thomas, The Treatise on Resurrection, etc.) that all mention Jesus.

In fact, we can almost reconstruct the gospel just from early non-Christian sources: Jesus was called the Christ (Josephus), did “magic,” led Israel into new teachings, and was hanged on Passover for them (Babylonian Talmud) in Judea (Tacitus), but claimed to be God and would return (Eliezar), which his followers believed, worshiping Him as God (Pliny the Younger).

There is overwhelming evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ, both in secular and biblical history. Perhaps the greatest evidence that Jesus did exist is the fact that literally thousands of Christians in the first century AD, including the twelve apostles, were willing to give their lives as martyrs for Jesus Christ. People will die for what they believe to be true, but no one will die for what they know to be a lie.

Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/did-Jesus-exist.html

#Jesus #archaeology #history #apologetics #Theology

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gatekeeper-watchman · 1 year

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The Myth that All Jews Rejected Jesus

"Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover many believed in his name… many of the multitudes believed in him…many came to believe in him… a great many of the priests became obedient." (John 2:23; 7:31; 8:30; 4:39; Acts 6:7)

"You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Torah." (Acts 21:20)

It’s a common teaching that the Jews of the first century rejected Jesus as the Messiah and that every Jewish generation has done so ever since.

As with many teachings passed down from our elders and through urban legends, it's not exactly what happened—at least according to the New Testament. The NT portrays the Jewish people as being of divided opinion about him, not a unified, total, hostile rejection. And that it has also been the overall Jewish response over the centuries.

Countless Jews have believed in and followed Jesus, both in his day and throughout history. Thousands of "Yeshua-believing" Jews are living in Israel today and throughout the earth.

But their stories have largely been discounted or suppressed by the Jewish community as aberrations and acts of apostasy.

Ironically, the Gentile Church over time also hushed up stories about Orthodox Jews who followed Jesus yet remained practicing, observant Jews. In the eyes of the Church, these "believers" were heretical: an embarrassing repudiation of universal, catholic (non-Jewish) Christianity.

So the Synagogue and Church have inadvertently conspired for most of history to conceal the truth: Not all Jews rejected Jesus.

Some of their stories: are Jakob Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ After Auschwitz (1981), Pinchas Lapide, Israelis, Jews and Jesus (1979), and Oskar Skarsaune, Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (2007).

[For a PDF version of this article, click Myth that All Jews Rejected Jesus.]

Now Is Not Then

Part of the problem with this topic is the habit of reading history by what we know today. Today's urban legend says no Jewish person believes in Jesus.

A "Jew" may be a Marxist Socialist Social-Justice-Warrior atheist, a Freudian Reconstructionist New Ager, or a Hasid who believes Rabbi Schneerson of Brooklyn will rise from the grave and become the Moshiach. A Jewess may consult the Mazzalot (the stars), eats at a Subway deli, then goes wild at Adele concerts.

Each of these Jews can still define themselves as being a descendant of Abraham. But officially a "Jew" can't believe in Jesus and retain his or her ethnic identity or membership in the community.

Even though thousands of Jews right now believe that Jesus was (and is) the Messiah, the larger Jewish community has determined they are no longer—by definition—Jews. It's almost Websterian:

Jew: (noun) someone of the bloodline of Abraham who doesn't believe in Jesus the Jew.

Another challenge to unraveling the urban myth is that many Jews think of Jesus and Christianity as synonymous.

When they look at the thousands of denominations and sects under the label "Christianity" and see a largely non-Jewish—and at times anti-Jewish—religion confronting them, they have a reason not to be drawn to the "Jesus" they see.

Yet most of them choose not to see the often-radical differences between these Christianities and Jesus himself.

Out of self-protection, some Jews comb the body of rabbinic tradition for reasons (justifications) why Jews can't believe in Jesus. As expected, they find what they're looking for. A person always does.

But those who feel comfortably fortified with reasons for rejection don't realize that the rabbis—who lived and taught centuries after Jesus—were ignorant of the real story and merely passed on third-hand polemical comments about him and his disciples.

For example, the Babylonian Talmud contains many factual errors about Jesus and his disciples (Sanhedrin 43a) and is historically unuseful for gaining an objective hearing. Yet the Talmud stands as the ultimate authority for many (Orthodox) Jews.

Burn the Land Tactics Another development has been the "scorched earth policy" within Judaism. That means that what Christians believe, Jews must abandon, even if Jews once believed those ideas from Scripture— not merely abandon but repudiate them as alien doctrine.

One example. I once overheard a woman in a synagogue boldly announce that "Jews don't believe in the resurrection." But resurrection from the dead was (and still is) a central tenet of Orthodox Judaism, dating from biblical times. It is one of Maimonides' 13 Principles of the Faith which most Jews have upheld as a fairly universal definition of the Jewish Faith.

"I believe with perfect faith that there will be a revival of the dead [techiyat hameitim] at the time when it shall please the Creator." [Principle 13]

To say the resurrection is a non-Jewish concept is unhistorical. It's meant as a polemical dig at Christianity.

Tragically, in burning bridges with the past—with motives of protecting their people from Jesus—some Jewish leaders have revised their history and obliterated sources of hope their ancestors once held.

[For a study of the biblical basis of resurrection, please consider The Third Day: Resurrection Patterns.]

But why are the Talmudic sources unreliable when reporting on Jesus and his teaching? Because the rabbinic opinions about him were colored by at least two agendas.

First Agenda

The first agenda was the need to defend the reputation of previous rabbis who rejected Jesus, going back to the first century.

Later rabbis had to defend the vote of the first-century Sanhedrin which tried and convicted Jesus of blasphemy and national betrayal. Why?

It was inconceivable that the Elders of Israel would make such a colossal mistake as repudiating God's Mashiach and turning him over to Goyim to be executed.

Without questioning, without opening the documents of the case, later rabbis accepted what their teachers—and their teachers and their teachers — believed to be the right legal decision regarding the young rabbi from Nazareth. They repeated and thus validated the original ruling as the authoritative Jewish position for all time.

Second Agenda

Another influence on rabbinic views about Jesus is that the "Christianity" the medieval rabbis were rejecting was Roman Catholicism, not the Judaic faith of the New Testament.

When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire under Emperor Theodosius in AD/CE 380, it was by then largely non-Jewish and increasingly hostile to Jews and Judaism—hostile even to Jewish believers in Jesus. The new religion had little outward Jewishness about it.

Emperor Constantine had seen to that earlier at the Council of Nicea in 325 when he warned church bishops that they should have nothing to do with the practices of the "odious Jews," such as celebrating a Christian Passover.

Then, as the philosophy-trained theologians of the Church evolved their abstract doctrines about the Godhead and distilled them into a series of creedal formulas, the rabbis discerned no connection with Israel's "Old Testament" scriptures or faith. So, they rejected "Christianity"—and Jesus—as a package.

But Jesus and Christianity aren't always synonymous. The Church, in its actions and teachings, does not always represent the faith and doctrines depicted in the New Testament.

The NT is against hypocrisy and unbelief and phony religion. It is not against the historical, biblical faith of Israel.

Jesus' first disciples continued living as practicing Jews. And nowhere does the NT incite contempt or hatred for the Jewish people as a whole because many of their leaders and fellow citizens rejected Jesus. When he was hanging on the tree, Jesus asked God: "Forgive them, Father, for they don't know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).

Sadly, many Greek NT manuscripts do not contain this prayer. Some later Christian scribes didn't like the idea of Jesus seeking forgiveness for his Jewish enemies, so they took the prayer out of their copies. [Mss: Ρ75, ℵ, B, D, etc.]

[For more on this consider the articles Yeshua Did Not Hate Jews and God Did Not Reject His People]

Gradually, the Myth of Total Jewish Rejection settled in. A corollary of it is that after the Jews repudiated him, Jesus' disciples decided to preach his gospel of the Messianic Kingdom to the non-Jews, the Gentiles, who then open-heartedly accepted him and founded "Christianity."

Let's examine these two truisms to see if they are true.

First Error

According to the Hebrew Bible, God created all human beings in his image. Non-Jews or Goyim (Hebrew, "the Nations"), were not inferior, factory-discarded images of the Creator. No one was treif. Even Abraham and his children are called a goy (Genesis 12:2; 18:18); so are the people of Israel (Exodus 19:6). Goy Israel is simply one of the goyim.

When our common parents (Adam and Eve) sinned and were sent into exile from Gan Eden, their children descended into futility and death. They became "goyish" in their corruption. But God immediately moved to rescue the human family (us)—because he loved them (us).

Early on, he formed a people named Israel to be the channel of redemptive revelation to the human race. Regathering his exiled creation to himself became a central task. Reaching all the Goyim (nations) was the plan from the start.

Genesis 12:3c: In you [Avram] all the families of the earth will be blessed.

Isaiah 49:6: I will also make you a light of the Goyim so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Zechariah 2:11a: Many Goyim will join themselves to the LORD in that day and will become my people.

Psalm 117:1: Praise the LORD all you Goyim and let all the peoples praise Him.

The New Testament inherits these biblical mandates and assumes nothing changed with the coming of Jesus. God's Plan had simply entered its final stages. The Creator was still intent on reaching and delivering the Goyim out of their darkness.

Misreading Paul? Despite this obvious repeated teaching in the Hebrew Bible, many Christians have believed God decided to offer messianic salvation to the Gentiles only after the Jews had refused the Messiah Jesus. As Joseph Shulam of the organization Netivyah in Jerusalem has said, it's like the Goyim get rejected table scraps: a savior the Jews didn't want.

The idea is based, in part, on a misreading of Romans 11:11-12.

There, Paul says, God exploited the rejection of Jesus by the majority of Jewish leaders and the reception of Jesus by many non-Jews to His advance His purposes—His original, eternal Purpose. The way Paul saw the events of history unfolding, it appeared as though the Gentiles got the good food because the Jews said no to it. But that wasn't the real or whole truth.

In reality, the NT shows it was because Jews did believe in Jesus of Nazareth that the message went out to Gentiles.

His apostles (agents, shlichim) who gave the gospel to the world were all Jews. They were as much "Israel" as anyone else. Time after time, they tried to recruit fellow Jews to join the messianic campaign (Acts 28:23-29), and they frequently gained volunteers in Jerusalem and throughout the Diaspora.

All Are Summoned. Many Say Yes, But Not All No, not all of Israel accepted Jesus. But Paul said even the unbelief of what he describes as "some" fellow Jews did not nullify God's original purpose to bless the world through Israel and her Messiah (Romans 3:3). He had kept a remnant of 7,000 (Rom 11:2, 4-5).

The Plan went on, even though many refused to join the Jewish disciples in being messengers of redemption. Those who rejected their national calling were left behind, and strangers gratefully entered (Acts 13:26, 46-48).

But (again) Jewish rebellion and lack of concern for the Goyim didn't thwart God's Plan for Gentiles or Israel herself. He didn't lose heart when some, even most of His people rejected His will.

Jewish disinterest in reaching Goyim today with the truth of the Bible and the good news of the biblical God isn't stopping the God of Abraham from redeeming countless millions of them—through His Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth.

Second Error

We can't say the Jews "rejected" Jesus any more than we can say the Gentiles "accepted" him — if we mean all of them. Because in the New Testament era, most non-Jews did not accept him, while thousands of Jews did.

Goyim For Jesus When the gospel message of the Messiah and the God of Israel was preached to "pure" Gentiles (that is, raw pagans with no acquaintance with Judaism), few conversions are reported (Acts 16:11-39–Philippi; 17:34–Athens; 19:23-29–Ephesus).

But when the Messianic Message is preached in synagogues where there are many Gentile proselytes or "God-fearers" already associated with Israel, the gospel ignites a brush fire. For example, Acts 10 (the centurion Cornelius); 13:43, 48-49 (in Antioch); 14:1 (in Iconium); 17:4 (in Thessalonica); 19:17 (in Ephesus).

The Gentiles who already lived within the light of "Judaism" of the time and knew the Hebrew Scriptures were the most responsive to Jesus. Those who were ignorant of the Bible generally chose to remain so.

So, the blackwash that only pure pagans—devoid of Jewish teaching—could swallow the Israelite Gospel about Jesus has no historical basis. This is just polemical propaganda.

The reception of Jesus by Gentiles was a fulfillment of an 800-year-old prophecy.

It will come about on that day that the Nations [Heb. goyim] will resort to the Root of Jesse… and he will lift a standard for the Goyim. (Isaiah 11:10, 12)

Jesse was the father of David; David was the "grandfather" of Jesus, who was a "root" of Jesse. There is no question that Jesus has fulfilled this Hebrew prophecy.

And Among Jews? The coming of Jesus was characterized by one pious elderly Jew: "Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and the rise of many in Israel" (Luke 2:34). He saw that Jews would indeed fall away from God over the messianic child—but many would also rise: by accepting God's messianic redemption for themselves.

This mixed reaction to Jesus is exactly what we find in the New Testament.

What the Gospels Report (Contrary to Later Church Teachings)

In his gospel record, John uses an important adjective: "many" [polloi].

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover many believed in his name; many of the multitude believed in him; many came to believe in him. [Even] "many of the Samaritans [bitter enemies of Jews] believed in him" (John 2:23; 7:31; 8:30; 4:39).

Many believed; it does not say, "Everyone rejected Jesus."

Am Ha'Aretz Even though a mindless, manipulatable rabble called for Jesus' crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, the Jewish verdict wasn't unanimous. On his way to Skull Hill, dragging his cross, "there were following him a great multitude of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting him" (Luke 23:27).

The Elders Throughout his mission, Jesus was accepted not only by these common people.

Some of "the Jews" also believed in him (John 11:45). Especially in John's gospel this term designates the "Judeans" or Jerusalem spiritual leaders—the Temple Establishment, the Jewish Vatican—and their supporters, not ordinary Jewish citizens of Israel. John says "many rulers believed in him" (John 12:42). This term [Grk, archon] often denotes leaders of the Sanhedrin, the national religious court (Matt 9:18; Luke 14:1; John 3:1).

Thus, educated and patriotic Jewish leaders saw no reason to reject Jesus, even though the majority eventually did. That these men were willing to stand their ground in an ethnic, religious, and political avalanche suggests they weren't in it for prestige or advantage. No one was buying them off to be "Yeshua-nic Jews."

Paul is undoubtedly a key witness for being a Jesus-believing Jew. He affirmed again and again that he was a "Jew," an "Israelite," a "Hebrew" and a "Pharisee" (Acts 21:39; 22:3, Rom 11:1; Phil 3:5). He never referred to himself as a "Messiah-ite" (i.e., a Christian).

Yes, there is another side to the story.

Disciples Deserted Him Though many believed in Jesus, saying "He is a good man," others replied, "No, he deceives the people" (John 7:12). Even "many of his disciples withdrew, and were not walking with him anymore" (John 6:60, 66). By the end, Jesus was left to face Roman execution alone. "All the disciples deserted him and fled" (Matt 26:56)—but only for a time, for many returned.

And though it seems unbelievable, even when he appeared to eleven of his disciples after his resurrection the text says "some doubted" (Matt 28:17).

The NT doesn't gloss over the picture of what happened. If it wanted to convince later readers that "all the Jews" either rejected Jesus or accepted him, this mixed-reaction report isn't the best way to do that. You'd want to color your stories. That's just why these reports of Jewish responses ring true to history.

To press the point: the gospels portray an Israel of divided, not one-sided, opinion. Many leaders and many ordinary people stood on opposite sides regarding Jesus.

What the Book of Acts Reports

In the book of Acts (which covers events after the resurrection of Jesus), the picture is the same. "Multitudes" of Jews believe what they hear the disciples preach about the Nazarene.

Many [polloi] of those who had heard the message believed, and the number of the men came to be about 5,000. (Acts 4:4)

And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. (Acts 5:14; also 9:42; 17:12)

Special mention is also made of Jewish leaders and Hasidim, both within Israel and in the Diaspora.

A great many [polus] of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:7)

There was a certain disciple in Damascus, named Ananias… a man who was devout by the standard of the Torah, and well-spoken oy all the Jews who lived there. (Acts 9:10; 22:12)

Certain ones of the sect of the Pharisees…had believed. (Acts 15:5)

Crispus, the leader of the synagogue [in Corinth, Greece], believed in the Lord [Yeshua], with all his household. (Acts 18:8)

You see brother how many thousands [posai muriades] there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealots for the Torah. (Acts 21:20)

A Remnant of All Here again, we read of temple priests, Pharisees, synagogue officials, and Torah zealots all saying Yes to Jesus, Yeshua of Nazareth. These were orthodox—not gentilized, assimilated—Jews. They were "Hasidic" (covenant loyal), Scripture-centered people. Such also comprised the inner circle of Jesus' childhood, as portrayed in Luke 1-2.

In the book of Acts, the nation continues to be divided on the issue of Jesus.

Those who believed in his messiahship were a minority of the nation, but that was nothing new. Only "some" ever obeyed God in Israel's history. There was always just a remnant, an inner core of faithful.

Elijah part of a group of 7,000 in his day (1 Kings 19:18). Isaiah led a remnant (Isaiah 8:16-18). Ezra and Nehemiah led a small contingent of believing exiles back from Babylon to rebuild the temple.

In the case of the Messiah Jesus Movement, the remnant was a sizable one ("many thousands," Acts 21:20). But the size of a remnant is irrelevant. That it simply existed—and now exists within the Jewish community—is the point.

Toppling the Myth's Icon

It's an injustice to the Jewish followers of Jesus to perpetuate the Myth of Jewish Rejection. The faith of thousands, then and today, cannot be written off as though nothing.

At what point should we decide that the Messiah Jesus Movement was "credible" or authentically Jewish—only if every Jew believed in and obeyed him? By that measure, the Moses Movement cannot be deemed credible or authentic, because never in Jewish history has every Jew followed Moses or obeyed God.

Shall we say the Jews rejected Moses, too?

The authenticity of a work of God within a human being needs no validation by a majority vote.

And let's be historically accurate about the Gentiles. The majority of them mentioned in Acts who heard the Good News about Jesus declined to accept it. Should we also say the "non-Jews rejected Jesus," ignoring those many who did not? What about the Gentile Remnant then and now? (Some of you are part of it yourselves.)

Polishers of the Icon Paradoxically, the Myth is promoted by two groups: (1) Christians with anti-Jewish sentiment and (2) Jews with the anti-Christian sentiment.

Both groups use identical logic:

"Since Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah from the beginning—and always have and always will—there's absolutely no point in discussing him. Drop it. Jews and Jesus are incompatible."

This thinking, of course, relieves social tensions between Christians and Jews. It promotes pluralism and tolerance. It pays homage to the great idol to which Western civilization now bows down: "There is no truth and all gods are the same. You have yours; I have mine. And, uh, I don't want yours."

But this idol denies the unique validity of the Hebrew Scriptures upon which Jewish identity depends. If the Bible isn't true, Jewish claims of unique, chosen, self-identity, and national purpose are meaningless.

Obeying the cultural idol also leads to denying Jews the God-given right to hear the facts of the original case about Jesus to make decisions about him—free of bias.

For those who dwell under the deluding cloud of the Myth of Rejection, the New Testament itself is the best tool for dispelling it and exposing the Issue again to those of our generation.

The Walls of Walls Protecting the Icon Over the centuries Jews have rejected several messianic pretenders.

But their self-defining corporate rejection of Jesus and the New Testament is different. They can't leave him in the past as they did, say, Shabbetai Zvi.

Their response is partly due to Christianity itself: (1) to what the Roman Catholic Church and many Protestant groups have done to them in Jesus' name, and (2) due to indifference toward the inspired New Testament and the dehumanizing and paganizing forces within numerous branches of Christianity—which exist to this day.

No one can rewrite the terrible volume of Christianity's history. That wall will always remain; though it's not impenetrable (as many Jews can attest). But the Paganization Barrier could come down immediately if Christians decided to demolish it and return to the authentic New Testament "Olive Tree" faith (Romans 11).

We're All Alike Historical justifications aside, the Jewish rejection of Jesus may have nothing to do with history or religious conviction. It is more likely due to an inborn and shared human response to God's Plan in every age by not a few people: "Leave me alone! Don't interfere with my life! I am all the God I need and want. I don't need saving by a messiah."

But since this sounds so brash and childish—so filled with hubris—most of us find other reasonable reasons for keeping God and Jesus, and a contrite spirit at bay.

In the end, only the individual standing alone without his tribe—like Abraham, Moses, David, or the Gentile Job—can say to God, "Here am I. I repent in dust and ashes."

Thanks to the debris-clearing work of Jacob Jervell, "The Divided People of God," in his vital book Luke and the People of God: A New Look at Luke-Acts (Augsburg Publishing, 1972).

On Two Fulfilled Prophecies

(#1) The prophecy in Isaiah 11:10 was mentioned earlier. This says "the nations [goyim] will resort [darash] to the Root of Jesse, who will stand as a banner [nes] for the peoples."

Whether one admits Jesus is the foretold root of Jesse or not, Jesus has fulfilled this prophecy. No other Jew in history has been sought after as he has been and still is. The Goyim have gathered around no other flag raised on Zion's soil as they have his.

There is another prophecy Jesus fulfills, also related to our study.

(#2) Isaiah 49 describes God's missionary Eved, his Servant, who is both "Israel" (v. 3) and distinct from Israel. It is his calling to "bring Jacob back to [God]…that Israel might be gathered to Him" (v. 5), to "raise the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel"—and to be "a light to the Goyim" (v. 6).

The Eved thus has a dual assignment. According to Isa 11:10, he will be successful among many of the Gentiles. But amazingly to Jacob/Israel he is "the Despised One, the One Abhorred by the nation" (v. 7).

Why would a prophet of Israel foretell such a thing? Wouldn't that undermine the credibility of God's Servant and thoroughly invalidate his calling if the people from whom he arose despised him? From: Elder Steven P. Miller @ParkermillerQ, Founder of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups Jacksonville, Florida., Duval County, USA. Instagram: steven_parker_miller_1956, Twitter: @GatekeeperWatchman1, @ParkermillerQ, https://twitter.com/StevenPMiller6 Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gatekeeperwatchman Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElderStevenMiller

#GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO, #Ephraim1, #IAM, #Sparkermiller,#Eldermiller1981

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drmaqazi · 4 months

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WHAT TALMUD SAYS ABOUT JESUS, MARY, AND CHRISTIANITY AT LARGE.

'MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS IS A WHORE' - JEWISH HOLY BOOK - TALMUD

Jews and Gentiles:

The Talmud is one of the most major of all books in Judaism after the Torah. The Talmud covers every aspect of Jewish Life. Everything from what Jews wear and say, to how they act towards others and treat them.

Judaism, all but reform Jews, treat anyone who is not a Jew as a, sorry for lack of a better word I must say, dog. By the Talmud, if you are not a Jew you are not human! And, if you are not human, then you are equivalent to an animal.

The Talmud is at times a very hate filled book.

The Ultra-Orthodox and the Orthodox as well as Conservative Jews take it and place it a bit higher than the Torah. This is also why Judaism for the most part will not allow converts!

Some Teachings of the Talmud:

Erubin 21b. Whosoever disobeys the rabbis deserves death and will be punished by being boiled in hot excrement in hell.

Moed Kattan 17a . If a Jew is tempted to do evil he should go to a city where he is not known and do the evil there.

Non-Jews are Not Human Baba Mezia 114a-114b. Only Jews are human ("Only ye are designated men”).

Also see Kerithoth 6b under the sub-head, "Oil of Anointing" and Berakoth 58a in which Gentile women are designated animals (“she-asses").

Jews are Divine, Sanhedrin 58b. If a heathen (Gentile) hits a Jew, the Gentile must be killed. Hitting a Jew is the same as hitting God.

O.K. to Cheat Non-Jews, Sanhedrin 57a . A Jew need not pay a Gentile ("Cuthean") the wages owed him for work.

Jews Have Superior Legal Status, Baba Kamma 37b. "If an ox of an Israelite gores an ox of a Canaanite there is no liability; but if an ox of a Canaanite gores an ox of an Israelite...the payment is to be in full.”

Jews May Steal from Non-Jews, Baba Mezia 24a .

If a Jew finds an object lost by a Gentile ("heathen") it does not have to be returned. (Affirmed also in Baba Kamma 113b).

Sanhedrin 76a . God will not spare a Jew who "marries his daughter to an old man or takes a wife for his infant son or returns a lost article to a Cuthean…"

Jews May Rob and Kill Non-Jews, Sanhedrin 57a .

When a Jew murders a Gentile ("Cuthean"), there will be no death penalty.

What a Jew steals from a Gentile he may keep.

Baba Kamma 37b. Gentiles are outside the protection of the law and God has "exposed their money to Israel.”

Jews May Lie to Non-Jews, Baba Kamma 113a. Jews may use lies ("subterfuges") to circumvent a Gentile.

Non-Jewish Children Sub-Human, Yebamoth 98a. All Gentile children are animals.

Abodah Zarah 36b . Gentile girls are in a state of niddah (filth) from birth.

Abodah Zarah 22a-22b . Gentiles prefer sex with cows.

Abodah Zarah 67b . "The vessels of Gentiles, do they not impart a worsened flavor to the food cooked in them?”

Insults Against Blessed Mary,

Sanhedrin 106a . Says Jesus' mother was a whore: "She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters." Also in footnote #2 to Shabbath 104b it is stated that in the "uncensored" text of the Talmud it is written that Jesus mother, "Miriam the hairdresser," had sex with many men.

Gloats over Christ Dying Young, A passage from Sanhedrin 106 gloats over the early age at which Jesus died: "Hast thou heard how old Balaam (Jesus) was?--He replied: It is not actually stated but since it is written, Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days it follows that he was thirty-three or thirty-four years old.”

Says Jesus was a Sorcerer, Sanhedrin 43a . Says Jesus ("Yeshu" and in footnote #6, Yeshu "the Nazarene") was executed because he practiced sorcery.

Horrible Blasphemy of Jesus, Gittin 57a . Says Jesus ( see footnote #4) is being boiled in "hot excrement.”

Sanhedrin 43a . Jesus deserved execution: "On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged...Do you suppose that he was one for whom a defense could be made? Was he not a Mesith (enticer)?”

Attacks Christians and their Books, Rosh Hashanah 17a . Christians ("minim") and others who reject the Talmud will go to hell and be punished there for all generations (see footnote #11 for the definition of minim).

Sanhedrin 90a.Those who read the New Testament ("uncanonical books," see footnote #9) will have no portion in the world to come.

Shabbath 116a (p. 569). Jews must destroy the books of the Christians, i.e. the New Testament. See footnote #6.

Israel Shahak reports that the Zionists burned hundreds of New Testament books in Occupied Palestine on March 23, 1980 (cf. Jewish History, Jewish Religion, p. 21).

Sick and Insane Teachings, Gittin 69a . To heal his flesh a Jew should take dust that lies within the shadow of an outdoor toilet, mix it with honey and eat it.

Shabbath 41a. The law regulating the rule for how to urinate in a holy way is given.

Yebamoth 63a. States that Adam had sexual intercourse with all the animals in the Garden of Eden.

Yebamoth 63a. Declares that agriculture is the lowest of occupations.

Sanhedrin 55b . A Jew may marry a three year old girl (specifically, three years "and a day" old).

Sanhedrin 54b . A Jew may have sex with a child as long as the child is less than nine years old.

Kethuboth 11b . "When a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing.”

Yebamoth 59b . A woman who had intercourse with a beast is eligible to marry a Jewish priest. A woman who has sex with a demon is also eligible to marry a Jewish priest.

Abodah Zarah 17a. States that there is not a whore in the world that Rabbi Eleazar has not had sex with.

Hagigah 27a . States that no rabbi can ever go to hell.

Baba Mezia 59b. A rabbi debates God and defeats Him. God admits the rabbi won the debate.

Gittin 70a . The Rabbis taught: "On coming from a privy (outdoor toilet) a man should not have sexual intercourse till he has waited long enough to walk half a mile, because the demon of the privy is with him for that time; if he does, his children will be epileptic.”

Toilet and excrement obsessions are laced throughout Talmud and were exhibited in Spielberg*s Schindler's List where the Hollywood director shows a Jewish child jumping through a toilet seat in an outhouse and falling into a pool of liquefied excrement.

There the child meets two other Jewish children partially immersed who inform the interloper that this cesspool is their hiding spot exclusively and that he must find his own.

These are the kind of disgusting and morbid, psychotic images which Jewish kids are exposed to constantly in the cinematic liturgy of Holocaustianity and for that matter, in the Talmud as well. Gittin 69b (p. 329).

To heal the disease of pleurisy ("catarrh") a Jew should >take the excrement of a white dog and knead it with balsam, but if he can possibly avoid it he should not eat the dog's excrement as it loosens the limbs.< Pesahim 111a.

It is forbidden for dogs, women or palm trees to pass between two men, nor may others walk between dogs, women or palm trees. Special dangers are involved if the women are menstruating or sitting at a crossroads. Menahoth 43b-44a .

A Jewish man is obligated to say the following prayer every day: Thank you God for not making me a Gentile, a woman or a slave. Shabbath 86a-86b.

Because Jews are holy they do not have sex during the day unless the house can be made dark. A Jewish scholar can have sex during the day if he uses his garment like a tent to make it dark.

Tall Tales of a Roman Holocaust Here are two early "Holocaust" tales from the Talmud: Gittin 57b. Claims that four billion Jews were killed by the Romans in the city of Bethar. Gittin 58a claims that 16 million Jewish children were wrapped in scrolls and burned alive by the Romans. (Ancient demography indicates that there were not 16 million Jews in the entire world at that time, much less 16 million Jewish children or four billion Jews). A Revealing Admission Abodah Zarah 70a .

The question was asked of the rabbi whether some wine stolen in Pumbeditha might be used or if it was defiled, due to the fact that the thieves might have been Gentiles (a Gentile touching wine would make the wine unclean). The rabbi says not to worry, that the wine is permissible for Jewish use because the majority of the thieves in Pumbeditha, the place where the wine was stolen, are Jews Pharisaic Rituals Erubin 21b (p. 150). >>Rabbi Akiba said to him, "Give me some water to wash my hands." "It will not suffice for drinking," the other complained, "will it suffice for washing your hands?" "What can I do?' the former replied, "when for neglecting the words of the Rabbis one deserves death? It is better that I myself should die than that I transgress against the opinion of my colleagues." [This is the ritual hand washing condemned by Jesus in Matthew 15: 1-9].

Great Rabbi Deceives A Woman Kallah 51a (Soncino Minor Tractates). Teaches that God approves of rabbis who lie: "The elders were once sitting in the gate when two young lads passed by; one covered his head and the other uncovered his head. Of him who uncovered his head Rabbi Eliezer remarked that he is a bastard.

Rabbi Joshua remarked that he is the son of a niddah (a child conceived during a woman's menstrual period). Rabbi Akiba said that he is both a bastard and a son of a niddah. "They said, 'What induced you to contradict the opinion of your colleagues?' He replied, "I will prove it concerning him." He went to the lad's mother and found her sitting in the market selling beans. "He said to her, 'My daughter, if you will answer the question I will put to you, I will bring you to the world to come.' (eternal life).

She said to him, 'Swear it to me.' Rabbi Akiba, taking the oath with his lips but annulling it in his heart, said to her, 'What is the status of your son?' She replied, 'When I entered the bridal chamber I was niddah (menstruating) and my husband kept away from me; but my best man had intercourse with me and this son was born to me.' Consequently the child was both a bastard and the son of a niddah.

It was declared, '..Blessed be the God of Israel Who Revealed His Secret to Rabbi Akiba..." In addition to the theme that God rewards clever liars the preceding discussion is actually about Christ (the lad who 'uncovered his head'). The reference to the lad's mother is of course to the mother of Jesus, Blessed Mary (called Miriam and sometimes, Miriam the hairdresser, in Talmud).

Genocide Advocated by Talmud Minor Tractates. Soferim 15, Rule 10. This is the saying of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai: Tob shebe goyyim harog ("Even the best of the Gentiles should all be killed"). This passage is not from the Soncino edition but is from the original Hebrew of the Babylonian Talmud as quoted by the 1907 Jewish Encyclopedia, published by Funk and Wagnalls and compiled by Isidore Singer, under the entry, "Gentile," (p. 617).

This original Talmud passage has been concealed in translation. The Jewish Encyclopedia states that, "...in the various versions the reading has been altered, 'The best among the Egyptians' being generally substituted." In the Soncino version: "the best of the heathens" (Minor Tractates, Soferim 41a-b].

* “‘Yashu’ (derogatory for ‘Jesus’) is in Hell being boiled in hot excrement.” (Gittin 57a)

[’Yashu’ is an acronym for the Jewish curse, ‘May his (Jesus) name be wiped out forevermore.’]

* Yashu (Jesus) was sexually immoral and worshiped a brick.” (Sanhedrin 107b)

“Yashu (Jesus) was cut off from the Jewish people for his wickedness and refused to repent.” (Sotah 47a)

* “Christians who reject the Talmud will go to hell and be punished there for all generations.” (Rosh Hashanah 17a)

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the-hem · 5 months

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What are the Deserts of Zin and Negev?

After the Passover, after one commits to leaving the yoke of slavery behind, one must find a way to continue one's religion, achieve citizenship in civil society, to expanding the Circle, and ultimately to Ha Shem. The beginning of this process is called Zin.

Just as Moses and God committed the Israelites to the desert of Negev, the dry rolling hills in order to teach them to excavate the last traces of adolescence, one who is committed to faith must continue to yearn for a life free of all delusion about the nature iniquity, i.e. to become as intelligent as possible. But first, one sets forth and from Egypt, heresy, into Zin:

"Across several separate roots, the Bible sports an obvious connection between dry land to stand on and an established wisdom tradition to stand on. Adversely, new applications of wisdom or even new insights require new rain, which is why the word for teacher is the same as that for rain: מורה (moreh).

Verb צוה (sawa) either means to command or be dry. Noun ציון (siyun) either means signpost or dry place. Noun מצוה (miswa) means commandment but also applies to the full code of the law. Noun ציון (sayon) means dryness or parched land, and also points toward an time-honored wisdom tradition that has stopped growing because of an extended drought.

Noun צו (saw) means command. Noun צי (si) means either ship or refers to a kind of desert creature.

The power of ships, of course, is that they keep going around on their same trade routes and do everything the same each time. A desert dweller is of course also a creature that leans wholly on the "rocks" of a massively stagnant intellectual ecosystem, where very little life sprouts and grows (and please note that radically rejecting rocks won't bring back rains)."

Negev is the ability to be aware, competent, secure while attaining to residency within the intellectual plane of existence.

"The verb גבב (gabab) doesn't occur in the Bible but it appears to have meant to be concave or convex; to be bulbous or hollow. Noun גב (gab) denotes anything that is bulbous (hills, buttocks).

The verb גוב (gub) means to dig. Noun גב (geb) means pit or ditch. This verb appears to be associated with the verb יגב (yagab), meaning to till (what a farmer does). Noun יגב (yaqeb) probably refers to the field where the farmer tills.

Noun גבא (gebe') appears to describe a hollow in which water collects and is commonly translated with cistern, pool or marsh.

Verb גבה (gaba) means to collect. What we happen to collect determines the nature of one's character. We study the Torah and the Tanakh to ensure the collection is consistent with all that is Godly:

Nouns גב (geb), גוב (gob), גבי (gobay) and גובי (gobay) refer to locusts. Possibly a whole other verb גבה (gabah) means to be high, exalted or lofty, although this verb could actually describe a person who collected a heap, or who plunders a society like a swarm of locusts.

In the Talmud the word for tax collector was derived from this verb. Adjective גבה (gaboah) means high or haughty. Noun גבה (gobah) means height or haughtiness. And noun גבהות (gabhut) means haughtiness.

The result, a verb נגב (nagab) would mean to undulate, to wave, to have shifting dunes. That verb doesn't exist, but a mysterious noun נגב (negeb) does. This noun would thus denote a region with rolling hills, and came to be synonymous with "south", AKA "educated and also intelligent."

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congregationbethjacob · 7 months

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Things to do Congregation Beth Jacob

Congregation Beth Jacob is a Jewish synagogue or community center where people gather for religious, social, and cultural activities. Here are some everyday activities you might find at a temple like Congregation Beth Jacob:

Shabbat Services: Attend regular Shabbat services, which typically occur on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings. This is a time for prayer, reflection, and community.

Holiday Celebrations: Participate in special services and events for Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, Passover, etc.

Torah Study: Engage in groups focused on the Torah, Talmud, or other sacred texts. A rabbi or other knowledgeable community members may lead these sessions.

Religious Education: Enroll children or attend adult education classes to learn about Jewish history, traditions, and teachings.

Social Events: Join in social activities such as potluck dinners, community picnics, and other gatherings that foster a sense of togetherness.

Community Service: Participate in acts of kindness and community service, which are essential values in Judaism.

Cultural Events: Enjoy cultural programs like Jewish film screenings, music concerts, and art exhibits.

Youth Programs: Engage children and teenagers in age-appropriate activities and educational programs.

Adult Learning: Attend lectures, workshops, and seminars on topics relevant to Jewish life, ethics, and culture.

Support Groups: Connect with others during joy or sorrow, such as baby naming ceremonies, bar or bat mitzvahs, weddings, and funerals.

Outreach and Interfaith Activities: Engage with the broader community through interfaith dialogues, community service projects, or cultural exchange events.

Charitable Giving: Contribute to philanthropic causes within the Jewish community and broader humanitarian efforts.

Israel Advocacy and Education: Discuss and learn about Israel's history, politics, and culture, as well as support for the Jewish state.

Community Meals: Participate in communal meals, which may occur after services or during special events.

Mental and Spiritual Wellness Programs: Engage in activities like meditation, mindfulness, or yoga that promote well-being and spiritual growth.

It's important to remember that the specific activities and programs at Congregation Beth Jacob may vary, and it's always a good idea to check their website or contact them directly for the most up-to-date information on their offerings. Please visit the business of one of our regular supporters.

Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/LuRkggFANpeXNgc87

JC Motorworx

Address: 1054 2nd Street, El Centro, CA, 92243

Be sure to check out this attraction too!

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seekfirst-community · 1 year

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Meditation: Do you recognize the signs of God's presence and action in your life and the world today? Jesus used the image of a fig tree to teach his disciples an important lesson about reading the "signs of the times." The fig tree was a common and important source of food for the Jews. It bore fruit twice a year, in the autumn and in the early spring. The Talmud (teachings and commentaries of the ancient rabbis on the Jewish Scriptures) said that the first fruit came the day after Passover. The Jews believed that when the Messiah came he would usher in the kingdom of God at Passover time.

Let the fruit of God's kingdom grow within you

The early signs of a changing season, such as springtime, summer, or autumn, are evident for all who can see and observe the changes. Just so are the signs of God's kingdom and his return in glory on the day of judgment. The "budding" of God's kingdom begins first in the hearts of those who are receptive to God's word. Those who trust in God's word will bear the fruits of his kingdom. And what are the fruits of that kingdom? "The kingdom of God ..is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14:17). The Lord gives the first-fruits of his kingdom to those who open their hearts to him with expectant faith and trust in his word.

We do not know the day nor the hour when the Lord Jesus will return again in glory. But the Lord does give us signs, not only to "wake us up" as a warning, but also to "rouse our spirits" to be ready and eager to receive his kingdom when he comes in all his power and glory. The "Day of the Lord" will strike terror in those who have ignored or rejected God, but it will be a day of joy and rejoicing for those who long to see the Lord face-to-face. The Lord Jesus wants us to be filled with joyful anticipation for his coming again.

The Lord opens the word for us - listen and respond

While we wait for the Lord's physical return in glory, we can know his presence with us through the work and action of the Holy Spirit who dwells in our hearts. The Lord Jesus comes daily and frequently to those who long for him and he speaks tenderly to our hearts like a lover who whispers in the ear of the beloved. He comes to show us the way to our heavenly Father and to give us the hope of eternal life. Do you recognize his presence and do you listen to his word?

"Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all history, and the lord of all creation. Give me joyful hope and assurance that I will see you face to face and be united with you forever when you return in glory."

losing your head

“I also saw the spirits of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and the word of God, those who had never worshiped the beast or its image nor accepted its mark on their foreheads or their hands.” ––Revelation 20:4

We are a Church founded upon martyrs. Archaeology shows the spread of the early Church can be traced by following the relics of saints, and martyrs were the most honored of the saints. Altars were often constructed over their bones.

St. Stephen demonstrated the power of martyrdom with his Christ-like witness (see Acts 7:59-60). Stephen’s faithfulness influenced “a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58), who was present at the murder scene. Saul went on to become St. Paul, one of the Church’s greatest evangelists (see Acts 9:4-6).

The Apostle St. James, one of the Church’s twelve foundation stones (see Rv 21:14; cf Eph 2:20), won an early crown: “During that period, King Herod started to harass some of the members of the church. He beheaded James the brother of John” (Acts 12:1-2).

In a similar manner, many Old Testament witnesses set an example for trust in God. “They were stoned, sawed in two, put to death at sword’s point; they went about garbed in the skins of sheep or goats, needy, afflicted, tormented. The world was not worthy of them” (Heb 11:37-38).

A select few of us may be called to give our lives for faith in Jesus. However, most reading this won’t. This doesn’t free us from our duty to be witnesses. How does my life proclaim the risen Christ?

Prayer: Father, give me the courage to live and die for You.

Promise: “The heavens and the earth will pass away, but My words will not pass.” ––Lk 21:33

Praise: St. Catherine lived in Alexandria, Egypt, during the Fourth Century. She embraced virginity for love of Christ. Her counter-cultural stance inspired many young women; it also earned her martyrdom.

Reference: (This teaching was submitted by a member of our editorial team.)

Rescript: "In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat for the publication One Bread, One Body covering the time period from October 1, 2022 through November 30, 2022. Reverend Steve J. Angi, Chancellor, Vicar General, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio January 3, 2022"

The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements

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rickwhite · 2 years

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Passover: The Hillel Sandwich

Together or separate? The Sages disagreed on how one should eat the matzah and maror (bitter herbs) at the Passover Seder.

The Talmud in Berachot 49a admonishes us not to perform mitzvot “bundled together” (chavilot chavilot). We do not want to give the impression that mitzvot are an unwanted burden, an obligation that we wish to discharge as quickly as possible. For this reason, the majority opinion is that the two mitzvot of eating matzah and maror should be performed separately.

But Hillel’s custom was to place the pesach offering and the maror inside the matzah and eat them together like a sandwich. Why did Hillel combine these mitzvot together?

Matzah and Freedom

To understand Hillel’s opinion we must first examine the significance of matzah and maror. Matzah is a symbol of freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom does not mean sitting idle and unoccupied. True freedom means the opportunity to grow and develop according to our inner nature and natural gifts, without interference or coercion from outside influences. This freedom is symbolized by matzah, a simple food consisting solely of flour and water, unaffected by other ingredients and chemical processes.

In order to form the Jewish people as a holy nation, their national character needed to be independent of all foreign influences. They left Egypt free from the spiritual baggage of Egyptian culture. Thus we find that in preparation of bringing the Passover offering, they were commanded to “draw out and take for yourselves sheep” (Exod. 12:21). What does it mean to “draw out”? The Midrash explains that they needed to remove from within themselves any affinity to Egyptian idolatry (Mechilta ad loc).

With a clean slate, lacking any national character of their own, a holy character could then be imprinted on Israel’s national soul. This is part of the metaphor of matzah: it lacks any shape and taste of its own, so that the desired form and flavor may be properly imposed upon it.

The Message of Maror

Maror is the opposite of matzah; its bitterness is a symbol of servitude. But even servitude may have a positive value. An individual whose life’s ambition is to become a doctor must spend many years in medical school to achieve this goal. The long years of concentrated effort require great dedication and discipline. These years are a form of servitude - but a servitude that advances one’s final goal, and thus is ultimately a true expression of freedom.

This idea may also be applied to the Jewish people. Our souls are ingrained with a Divine nature, but we suffer from character imperfections that prevent us from realizing our inner nature. For this reason we need to accept upon ourselves a pleasant form of servitude, the service of God. We acquired this ability in Egypt. This is slavery’s positive contribution - it teaches one to accept the deferment of immediate desires and short-term goals.

This is the central message of maror: acceptance of life’s bitter aspects, with the knowledge that this forbearance and resolve will allow us to attain higher objectives. For this reason, we eat the maror only after eating the matzah - only after we have clarified our ultimate goals.

Discipline and Freedom

Now we may better understand the disagreement between Hillel and the other sages. Freedom, as symbolized by the matzah, reveals the inherent holiness of Israel and our natural love for God and Torah. This innate character enables us to overcome desires that do not concur with our elevated goals. It is through our persistence and dedication to the overall goal that we reveal our inner resources of freedom.

Both of these traits, freedom and servitude, need to be free to act without interference from one another. When a spirit of freedom and independence is appropriate, it should not be constrained by a servile attitude; and when discipline and a sense of duty are needed, they should not be disrupted by a desire for freedom. Thus, according to the majority opinion, we should eat the matzah and maror separately, indicating that each trait should be expressed to its fullest.

The ultimate goal, however, is attained only when we recognize that these two forces do not contradict one another. Joined together, they present the highest freedom, whose nobility and power is fully revealed when it wears the crown of lofty servitude: the service of the Holy King, a service that is freedom in its purest state.

Thus Hillel would eat the matzah and maror together. He sought to emphasize that freedom and slavery are not contradictory concepts. Generally speaking, the quality of servitude belongs more to the preparatory stage; but in the overall picture, the two forces are interrelated, complementing one another to attain the final goal.

(Silver from the Land of Israel. Adapted from Olat Re’iyah vol. II, pp. 287-289. Photograph by user:Gilabrand / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-2.5)

#Pesach #Maror #Matzah #Freedom #Barachot 49b #Seder #Servitude #Egypt #Mussar

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awkwardpenguinproductions · 3 years

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what’s your favorite part of being jewish

I love how central learning is to Judaism. We’re commanded to study, we’re commanded to read and learn and think. We’re meant to struggle with our faith, to figure out what it means for us to be Jewish, both individually and collectively. I love that I can teach my fifth graders these traditions, and they can go “why does it have to be this way? why can it not be this way?” and I can take this question to my rabbi and go “yeah Rabbi, why?” and she answers with examples from the Tanakh and the Talmud and the Mishna. And I love that I can go, “okay, I understand now, but I do not vibe with this,” and she can shrug and say, “yeah, that’s fine” and we both go on with our lives. No guilt, no shame, just knowledge passed down, considered, and set aside like a puzzling but well loved book. Or in some cases, stuffed on the back of the shelf and forgotten about.

That is my favorite thing about being Jewish.

I’m doing a #jewish on main q&a in honor of Passover! Come ask me stuff! Disclaimers and warning here.

#ask me stuff!#curious anons #jewish on main #jewish on main q&a #teviya in real life

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docholligay · 3 years

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The Wicked Child

My shavout talk for 2021!! My congregation has a thing every year where we get together and eat dairy products and give teachings to each other about something we learned from Torah this year, or something we've been thinking about. People have done reviews of Jewish books, or extrapolated on a Talmudic point they found interesting, or talked about what it means to be Jewish, for them. Anyway its so open ended that we teasingly call it "Jewish Ted Talks" and this is mine for this year. Bear in mind this is meant to be given live, so it reads a little differently than my stuff meant to be read.

I have a theory that most of us who came to Torah late in life, whether because we converted, or we ignored the chances given to us, or like, me, we grew up so assimilated and afield that there was not really much chance at all, end up being the four children of Passover.

I have known so many wise children, asking what each specific law is, hungrily devouring the commentaries and their reasons for each of them, listing them off along with all the sons of Jacob, of which I can probably remember about five, if I try really hard. Three on a bad day. At least, I’m always sure one is Joseph.

I have known plenty of children who do not know how to ask, sitting in the back of service, tracing the lines of the prayers and songs they should rightfully know, but have yet to discover. I wonder if all of us haven’t been that child, at least once, nervous, and maybe, particularly if we were born Jewish, a bit ashamed.

I have known simple children, asking how we got here, asking what today is and why are we all showing up to eat cheesecake, listening happily for the answer. Wondering if some day they’ll have the courage to share the learning of their own.

And then there is the wicked child.

Read the rest on Patreon

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pesach06 · 3 years

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Pesach 2022 Programs And A Trip In Itself

Pesach 2022 Programs is a yearly major Jewish celebration that came to fruition because of the blend and relationship of various yearly occasions that occurred in Jewish and Center Eastern history. The going with once-over addresses the chronicles course of events wherein the celebration of Passover/Pesach achieved its names.

Passover/Pesach is:

a one-day party suggested in Hebrew as "Cha Ha-Pesach" or "Witch Ha-Pesach," indicating "The Festival of the Paschal Commitment." This one-day merriment was praised by early Center Eastern social classes before the Passover/Pesach of Egypt story. It was entwined into the Passover/Pesach of Egypt story as the paschal sheep whose blood was utilized by the Jews on the door posts and lintel (bar) at the way to their families to "guard" the fundamental envisioned young person in each Jewish family in Egypt from the ferocity of the Angel of Death, who, ensuing to seeing the blood, "skipped" over or "passed" over the Jewish families and considering everything, killed the man thought about a kid in each Egyptian family in the tenth and last Plague.

a six-day party implied in Hebrew as "Witch Ha-Matzot", inferring "The Festival of Unleavened Bread." Like "The Festival of the Paschal Commitment," this celebration was praised by early Center Eastern social classes before the Passover/Pesach of Egypt story. It was converted into the Passover/Pesach of Egypt story in acknowledgment of the unleavened bread that was formed in a tornado by the Jews as they were aiming to leave Egypt following the tenth and last Plague. Following the Passover/Pesach of Egypt story, the one-day Festivity of the Paschal Commitment was gotten along with the six-day Festivity of Unleavened Bread to join the new seven-day Festivity of Pesach/Passover. This new celebration consolidated the imagery of the two past celebrations with the occasions of the Passover/Pesach of Egypt story to make the principal imagery of the Passover/Pesach of Egypt story which was thusly advanced by Talmudic rabbinical specialists by figuring everything out these imageries into a 15-experience request ("Sender" in Hebrew) of rules for fittingly organizing the euphoric dinner on the head evening of Passover/Pesach (for Jews living external Israel, there are two happy meals, one on an essential evening and the other on the second evening of Passover/Pesach). This bright celebration got known as the "Passover Seder" or "Pesach Seder".

seven-day merriment (eight days for Jews living external Israel) of the time span where both the Passover/Pesach of Egypt and the resulting entering of the Jews into Canaan occurred: in the springtime. The presence of the Jews in Canaan likewise tended to the start of some other season of public action for the Jews. The Jewish name for the celebration of the time span in which the Passover/Pesach of Egypt and the ensuing appearance of the Jews in Canaan happened is known as "Chaha-Aviv" or "Witch Ha-Aviv", hinting at "The Festival of Spring." Some have in addition recommended this Passover/Pesach name as "The Time of Our Opportunity."

As you can see by the above clarifications, the record of Passover/Pesach and the beginning of its names is an excursion in itself that covers numerous significant stretches of history. Like the 15-experience referenced headings for appropriately driving the Passover/Pesach Seder, the Jewish Sages of old occasions are relied upon to teach and feature that the way toward progressing from physical and political control to physical and political opportunity is irritating paying little heed to compensate experience.

The record of how Passover/Pesach accomplished its names and how they were joined into the Passover/Pesach of Egypt story and the 15-experience referenced cycle for driving the Passover/Pesach Seder both train that in each age, individuals who are liberated from physical and political maltreatment should get a more expansive view point and energy for the blessing that God has given them. For those genuinely attempting to achieve their physical and political possibility during that time straight up until the present moment and past, the messages contained in the account of how Passover/Pesach accomplished its names and how they were joined into the Passover/Pesach of Egypt story and the 15-experience referenced relationship for driving the Passover/Pesach Seder have revived presumption and support and a lifting perspective towards the future despite being in severe conditions. A depiction of this is a piece of the mysteriously made African-American spirituals whose words according to a certified point of view depicted Moses driving his family to a promising condition in the Passover/Pesach story yet these authentic message was to utilize the Passover/Pesach story, as a framework, to empower suspicion and support to African slaves that they likewise, would a little while later be free themselves.

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gavrielabrahams · 4 years

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So, for background, my family aren't not exactly gerim, but we're not exactly baal tshuvim either (something in between if you will), but we DO know what it's like to grow up not knowing anything about being Jewish besides motzah on Passover and bacon is technically a no-no (but everyone eats it anyhow).

I've been learning halacha half my lifetime now (whoa, that's a trip... I feel old), and a good portion of it has been realizing that I've either been more frum than I thought or more than I needed to be.

And like, I appreciate the stringency of course. Do I believe now that watching TV violates Shabbat? No, I don't. But do I believe it is counter to Shabbat? Absolutely. Shabbat is for board games, debates about the Talmud, naps, eating too much, and 3 mile walks in all kinds of weather.

But the more I learn the more frustrated I get at how gerim are addressed.

There is clearly a trend of teaching gerim the most extreme interpretations of halacha, requiring them to follow those perfectly, and then threatening them with conversion reversal if they fall off the derech. (This is only true of particularly Ashkenazi Orthodox religiously conservative synagogues and beit din, but since they typically control the Orthodox giyur, it pushes people towards Reform and Conservative movements and while have nothing but respect for those movements, and belong to a Reform synagogue myself, I absolutely feel they fail people who may see themselves as Modern Orthodox, Liberal Orthodox, Orthopraxis or Liberal Shomer Mitzvot.)

I fully support properly vetting prospective gerim to make sure that they are fully educated in mitzvot, fully prepared to take them on, and committed to being a full part of our community. But I really believe that Rabbi's and educators need to teach them the mitzvot in levels. "You *may* do it this way. But if you can, you *should* do it this way. And if you can do more, *ideally* it's this way."

Rejecting gerim because they wear jeans, or don't have a Jewish day school to send their kids to, or they listen to secular music is just insane.

#jumblr #conversion #giyur

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unsureofreligionname · 4 years

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This was meant to be me venting, but accidentally became a history of my relationship with religion instead.

Alright. So.

Came here to talk about religion because I have no outlet. If you don't want to hear it, just block me. I'm not trying to convert anyone, I'm just explaining things to see if anyone has a feckin name for my damn belief system, because I really want to avoid accidentally starting a religion or something and pissing everyone off more.

People who got pissy last time got on my ass about how I probably wasn't even ethnically jewish, so here's the whole story.

I was raised by a mother who was raised by a non-practicing jewish mother, both of whom converted to christianity in the late nineties, shortly before I was born. They're ethnically jewish, or so I'm told.

Not super related, but, in case it comes up later, I was raised with the belief that my mother's family is a long line of very careful psychics, which roughly means "a lot of the family is sensitive to spirit shit but avoids it like the plague because it's scary."

I was raised by a father who is, as far as I know, not ethnically jewish. He's of mixed asian heritage, so i guess maybe, but I'm going to assume he's not. His parents, however, were both religiously Jewish; my grandmother was adopted and raised Jewish, and my grandfather converted sometime between meeting and marrying my grandmother. They are reform. My father wasn't the most religious guy in the world, but, if you asked, he'd probably either make a joke about ohio state football or say that he was jewish.

I was raised by my father and mother together until I was seven. We didn't always consistently go to church in early childhood, but my mother did take me to two or three for months or years at a time during the 2-5 period. We celebrated christmas and easter, and i had an illustrated children's bible that, if I remember right, was split into two parts: the first was marketed to christian and jewish kids, and the latter- new testament- to christian kids. Guessing the marketing from the publishing organizations. I think I had a few other religious books and videotapes directed towards kids, both jewish and christian. I specifically remember one that illustrated mana as vanilla wafers for some reason. At seven, my parents divorced, and I primarily lived with my dad.

My dad didn't take me anywhere on the regular, but when I visited his parents for the full weekend, they'd take me to the synagogue. This was every couple of weeks. We celebrated major jewish holidays, but smaller festivals only really got a mention. When I was ten, my dad and stepmother married. She wasn't really religious, but her parents were christian, so christmas was back on our roster then, too.

I started going to hebrew school in 6th grade, but I didn't actually have a bar mitzvah because I ended up getting kicked out at around the time I turned 13 due to a whole thing about me going trick or treating when I was "too old" or whatever, shitty parents, so I ended up having to go live with my mom after that.

At this point, my mom was studying to become a youth pastor, and enrolled me into a local christian school with about a hundred students. Unfortunately, this ended up being a weird fundamentalist cult with its own textbooks and teachings, including that bacteria was not real, AIDS was a summoned by The Gays™ to kill all the christians, evolution was a conspiracy meant to dissuade people from religion, et cetera. It was fucking bizarre, at one point they called several of us posessed for being autistic and otherwise neurodivergent, and they categorized us students into the groups wise, fools, simple, and scorners. (I was a fool, by the way.) It was really not ideal, and the weird punishments were pretty traumatic. There was some weird brainwashy type word repetition involved with lookatthepersonsayokayanddothetask over and over and over, and it sucked.

So, I was at that school for about 18 months before they kicked me out for refusing to stand on one foot for an extended period of time after tapping my foot in class which caused a student who disliked me to complain.

At the same time, my mother was working at a small church out of town that wasn't exactly a cult, but I think the pastor kind of wanted it to be? It was like he wanted the cult aesthetic™ and devoted followers and shit, but only had the skill to make a really sketchy and toxic small town church with a lot of people sitting on blankets on the floor instead. That church honestly wasn't a big part of my life the way the fucked cult was, I just sort of went most weeks. I went to a confirmation class there- I'm pretty sure it was a methodist church- and got confirmed into it shortly before my mother left because the administration was weird in like an asshole way, and that was the last I knew of it.

I was homeschooled for a while during the end of this period due to all of the school stuff. Religiously, by this point in my life, I'd developed some of my own beliefs. I believed in most of the new testament and most of the torah, but I didn't have much exposure to the talmud or much of a comprehensive education in any religion. I think I read a bible cover to cover at least once as a kid, including some shitty commentary (it was a preteen bible) that gave me some internalized homophobia issues for actual years. I was also super curious about the paranormal but terrified of possession- remember the cult?- and I was curious about the idea of some people being reincarnated if they were needed on earth again. Not sure where exactly that idea came from, but it was there. People told me from a lot of sides that those with the wrong religion would go to hell, and the cult tried to teach us all to convert people at any opportunity, but, after leaving, the whole situation just made me massively uncomfortable. I did continue to practice the jewish traditions I knew how to do on my own- like hannukah and a weird private sort of passover- and my mother would support this by getting me what I needed for it, even though she didn't participate and I didn't go to any place of worship during holidays.

After getting kicked out of school not that long after adjusting to not seeing my dad or siblings on his side, we moved. My dad lost custody at some point and we no longer had to live close, so we moved and tried to find a better school. It was a Catholic grade school this time, and I was there for about six months, if I had to guess. It was actually a pretty good school, but I had some issues at the time, so I didn't enjoy it much. I was scared of teachers and administration by then, and I had trouble going the entire school day without panicking or not being able to work. There was a period of a week or two in which I didn't speak at school at all. We ended up settling on half days, and, after that, I did well.

The religion class was awkward. The other kids seemed to know more than me even though I'd thought I had a good grasp on religion at that point, and the little information we shared I'd been taught from a very different perspective. Everyone was very nice to me, but I definitely stood out as the kid who wasn't catholic at that point.

Chapel was even weirder. We had to go every wednesday during school, and catholic churches had so many traditions I didn't know about, and the stuff I knew about from either my jewish grandparents or protestant churches had a different name for some reason.

I'm looking at you, sacraments.

Anyway.

I don't think I got much out of the chapel, but religion classes were kind of cool. I liked learning about stuff I hadn't heard before, and the things that were the same were a comfort.

Soon, though, I was graduating eighth grade. I ended up going to a catholic high school. I was still out of place, but I at least had a basic idea of what to do during the mass this school had monthly.

I liked the religion classes here more, how they were an open discussion of everyone's opinions and experiences, and I liked that both of the most recent schools I'd gone to had actual textbooks with facts and studies in them. There were more kids there who weren't catholic, and I felt more comfortable to actually explore religious topics with people. I had a better understanding of catholic beliefs, a decent idea of their traditions, and could recognize at least a few of their holidays I couldn't have before.

I spent my last year of high school at a public career center to start working towards a medical career.

Now, my current beliefs. If you don't want to read it, then just don't.

I haven't been to any place of worship since my school required it, but I do have strong beliefs. I believe in one God (which I generally write all the way out after a billion essays for religion class) who created everything and watches over humans, which he made in his image, etc etc etc. I believe the old stories from the tanakh/old testament/don't care what you call it and the new- yes, including the key messiah bit- though I do think it wasn't all translated perfectly and that it was written by humans who made mistakes and poor decisions sometimes in their writing. I believe people's salvation comes through their intention, not through a piece of knowledge or a creed or good deeds or a tradition, and I believe different people worshipping in different ways is how it should be, because different people NEED different styles of worship. I believe that if someone is genuinely mistaken and incorrect in who or what they believe in, it doesn't MATTER because it's the intention to strive to do good and not harm fellow people that counts. I'm a little guarded about sharing my own beliefs, hence why I made an anonymous tumblr account, but I'm generally very curious to hear about what other people believe. I find that, for me, celebrating Jewish holidays and traditions helps me get closer to God, and I'd like to find a place of worship one day, but churches fucking terrify me now. I worship best by sitting and discussing beliefs, but I have no place to do it now that I've graduated school. I also developed some of my less related beliefs now: I believe in a lot of old stories that have popped up around the world, like fairies of various places, different creatures and entities and things that have become the subject of curiosity or worship, spirits and things, etc. I think many of these creatures exist, just that they may be different from us in the nature of how they interact with the world and matter and that, and I don't think they're deities or anything. I believe in ghosts of humans in some cases, too, though I believe sometimes other things mimic them. I don't find the idea of God having someone reincarnated if he wants the same soul to play many parts in the world unlikely at all, though that's really just me speculating. I still believe in demons, and I still don't want anything to do with them.

A lot of my understanding of things comes from Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant teaching in a strange mishmosh of culture and religion.

I relate to a lot of things directed at Jewish people, and I understand what's directed at Catholic people. Things directed at Protestant people are both understood and, unfortunately, make me instinctively wary due to weird cult trauma (that in no way reflects on actual protestant people, i love you guys some people just suck and twist religion) so are hard to interact with.

In a lot of ways, I'd consider myself Jewish. Culturally, at least, if my religious beliefs aren't "validly jewish" or whatever.

I have literally zero actual connections to any Catholic church, but I almost feel like a weird half-catholic. That's not a thing, but it's how it feels. I believe a lot of it, and I'm interested in all of it, even if I have my disagreements, plus I understand the environments and culture of it, even if I'm a bit of an outsider.

A year- or maybe two years, idk- ago, I mentioned some upcoming holiday or smth in a post and tagged it messianic. That's the closest name I could find for my experience, but apparently some organizations who use the term suck or something. I ended up getting a bunch of asks calling me a predatory fake jew or a fundamentalist christian trying to appropriate judaism or other weird shit that I'm NOT DOING. Because of my experiences in the past, those comments still weigh so damn heavy on my that I broke my resolve and made this stupid account to complain about it.

I don't have a name for what I am. I don't know where to go to talk about my beliefs with people, or what environment I could find to actually practice whatever weird faith I've dreamt up with other people in a way that isn't just picking part of what I believe and leaving the rest to rot. I feel closer to God and more spiritually fulfilled practicing the festivals that call back to what the Jewish people of old went through, but I also believe in the messiah of the new testament, and I like to read the pope's opinion on things, even though I think no human is perfect or infallible. I want to talk about old writings with people and discuss what they mean, from my religion or others, and I don't want to give any of what's right for me spiritually up.

I don't know what this post is for.

Maybe I'm just venting, but I do want to know if this is a thing or if I'm the only one with this belief system. I'm sick of getting shit for the actions of people who I'm not affiliated with, so apparently calling myself messianic doesn't cut it. I can't call myself "spiritual but not religious" either, because I'm very religious, it's just very personal and not something I shove at people, and "christian" doesn't describe a solid half of what I believe. Off and on again I've considered converting to Catholicism, but I think that's kind of grasping at the closest thing that won't piss off tumblr anons as much. (And yeah, the larger Catholic church can suck, but I honestly think I'm gonna get that with any religion with a large following)

Rambling aside:

I want to find a short description that hits the major points of what I believe in order to help me find a place or group of worship that actually matches my spiritual needs without compromising the cultures that I grew up with and making me feel like shit.

(Also don't try to change my beliefs thanks)

I'll be tagging this with anything I've mentioned or vaguely heard of that might be related so relax ok

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