Where is Israel in churches’ statements of faith?
Statements of faith are a staple of contemporary Christianity. Every church has it. There, encased in carefully crafted words, one can glean the core beliefs of a particular Christian community. And not just the essential things are listed, like G-d, Jesus, how to be saved, etc. – but also the minutiae, such as will the church be Raptured before or after the Tribulation, how does one exercise the gifts of the Spirit, what do they think of homosexuality, whether or not King James version of the Bible is the most accurate translation, or what constitutes a valid marriage, are often included as well.
However, as a Jew, I’ve spotted one glaring omission in nearly all of those statements – Israel and the Jewish people. Continue reading this post
This is one of those “hot” topics. A Messianic Jewish rabbi friend of mine recently got an email from a distraught woman urgently asking him to intervene on behalf of her husband. I would like some opinions on the matter from my readers. I will paraphrase that email below to protect all parties:
Please pray for us and help us. You see, my Jewish husband (who is from Israel) believes that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel through whom God redeems and saves, but he refuses to believe that Jesus is God too. My husband is adamant that he will not accept this belief. I don’t know what to do – I don’t want him to be lost. I need urgent help and I think my husband will benefit from your counseling. I am really hoping that you would be able to convince him of his error before it’s too late.
Question for my readers: should this woman be concerned about the spiritual fate of her husband? If this Jewish man never changes his mind on the nature of the Messiah, should he be concerned about his final destiny and should we?
Note: do not attempt to prove, disprove or cast doubt on Yeshua’s divinity in your comments. That’s not the point of this post. Rather, focus on whether the belief in Yeshua’s divinity (in addition to his Messiahship) is required or not required for salvation.
Humor in Talmud: Two rabbis and table manners
R. Yose and R. Judah ate porridge [out of the same bowl]. One ate with his fingers [as his spoon] and the other with a palm leaf.
He who was eating with the palm leaf asked the one who ate with this finger, “How long will you make me eat the filth of your finger?“
The one who hate with his finger replied to the one who ate with a palm leaf, “How long will you make me eat your spittle?“
[B. Ned 49b.]
Daily Minyan: The moral of the story – it’s not always good to share.
R. Meir used to say:
Where do we find the proof that even a Gentile who pursues the study of Torah is like a high priest? From the assertion about Torah’s ordinances that “by pursuing their study man shall live” (Lev. 18:5), where Scripture speaks not of priest, Levite, or Israelite, but of “man.” So you learn that even a Gentile who pursues the study of Torah is like a high priest. (B. Sanh 59a)
R. Jeremiah used to say:
Scripture says: “This is the gate of the L-rd; the righteous shall enter it.” The scripture also says: “Rejoice in the L-rd, O ye righteous” (Ps. 33:1) – not “Rejoice, o ye priests, Levites, and Israelites”….Thus, even a Gentile who keeps Torah is like a high priest. (B. BK 38a; Exod. R. 19:4; Sif Lev. 86b)
IMPORTANT NOTE: The “Torah” and “keeping of Torah” (observances) in the full context of the above quotes are those commandments which are applicable to the “sons of Noah” (i.e. all non-Jews). For more information see this post: “66 Commandments for Gentiles from The Seven Laws of Noah“
Just about everyone knows that Jesus (Yeshua), during his ministry, had unflinchingly confronted those among his own, the Jews, who were unfaithful, unjust, unmerciful, ungrateful, self-righteous and hypocritical. Because of that, some have imagined that through this criticism Yeshua had turned on Judaism and his own Jewish people. Some go so far as to claim that the New Testament is filled with antisemitic sentiments. They do so by ignoring the even stronger words of the Jewish prophets that came before him. Jesus didn’t turn his back on Judaism or the Jews – nothing could be farther from the truth. He remained a quintessential Jew of his day, devoted to his nation. In fact, and quite paradoxically, if anyone should be offended having read the New Testament and words of Jesus, it’s the Gentiles, not Jews! Continue reading this post
Song of My Slaughtered People
Thursday, April 19, the Jewish people and their friends will mark another Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Memorial Day. On this day we remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Yitzchak Katznelson, whose prose poem you will read below, was also murdered, along with his wife and three sons. The poem below survives because Yitzchak Katznelson hid it in a bottle and burried it under a tree in the ground of a Nazi concentration camp where he was interened. It was found and published after the war.
At the station, another girl I saw was about five years old. She fed her younger brother, and he cried. He cried, the little one; he was sick. Into a diluted bit of jam she dipped tiny crusts of bread and skillfully inserted them into his mouth. This my eyes were privileged to see, to see this mother, a mother of five years, feeding her child, to hear her soothing words. My own mother, the best in the world, had not invented such a ruse. But this one wiped his tears with a smile, injecting joy into his heart, this little girl of Israel. Sholem Aleichem could not have improved upon her.
They, the children of Israel, were the first in doom and disaster, most of them without father and mother. They were consumed by frost, starvation and lice. Holy Messiahs, sanctified in pain. Why, in days of doom, are they the first victims of wickedness, the first in the trap of evil, the first to be detained for death, the first to be thrown into the wagons of slaughter? They were thrown into the wagons, the huge wagons, like heaps of refuse, like the ashes of the earth. And they transported them, killed them, exterminated them, without remnant or remembrance.
The best of my children were all wiped out, woe unto me, doom and desolation. —Yitzchak Katznelson, Song of My Slaughtered People
Why is Israel like an olive?
R. Yohanan said:
Why is Israel said to be like an olive? Because as the olive will not yield its oil unless it is crushed, so Israel do not return to the right way unless they are crushed by affliction. (B. Men 53b and En Yaakov, ad loc.)
We read in Exod. R. 36:1
“A leafy olive tree, fair with goodly fruit” (Jer. 11:16). Olives, while still on the tree, are marked for shriveling, after which they are knocked down and brought up to a roof, where they are left to dry; then they are placed in a grinding mill, where they are ground; their pulp is then tied up in a hempen bale, upon which heavy stones are placed. Only after all that do olives yield their oil. So, too Israel. The nations of the earth knock them down, drive them from place to place, imprison them, put chains around their necks, and post soldiers all around them. Only then do Israel resolve on repentance, and the Holy One responds to them.
Why and how to practice charity, the Jewish way
Giving may seem like a sacrifice at times (especially when money is tight) or we often wonder if the person we give to is worthy or really needs our help, but in reality being charitable to others does more for us, for our relationships with G-d and with our fellow human beings than it does to the people who we give to. With that in mind, I’ve put together some Jewish wisdom to help inspire you along: Continue reading this post
There’s great pressure in the world today for Jews to assimilate, to intermarry, to stop practicing Judaism, to stop living as Jews, to blend in and lose their distinctiveness once and for all. Yet until now, Jews as a people, have resisted the constant attempts to consign them to the dust bin of history. Many Jews themselves, however, wondered, was it really all worth the price that Jews had to pay? Why stay Jewish? Would it not have been better to simply become nice Christians (are they not acceptable to G-d?) or whoever, marry out and have non-Jewish children and grandchildren, as many Jews have indeed elected to do in times past and still do, and spare one’s progeny endless humiliation, persecution and death?
Jewish author Norman Podhoretz once asked the following poignant question:
In thinking about the Jews I have often wondered whether their survival as a distinct group was worth one single hair on the head of a single infant. Did the Jews have to survive so that six million innocent people should one day be burned in the ovens of Auschwitz? (“My Negro Problem and Ours,” Commentary, 1963)
Another Jewish [Russian] writer, Boris Pasternak, wrote along similar lines in his famous book Doctor Zhivago:
In whose interests is this voluntary martyrdom? Who stands to gain by keeping it going? So that all these innocent old men and women and children, all these clever, kind, humane people should go on being mocked and beaten throughout the centuries? Why don’t the intellectual leaders of the Jewish people … dismiss this army which is forever fighting and being massacred, nobody knows for what? Why don’t they say to them: ‘That’s enough, stop now. Don’t hold on to your identity, don’t all get together in a crowd. Disperse. Be with all the rest.”
Israel more important than Torah
R. Simeon ben Yohai said:
It is written, “As the days of a tree shall be the days of My people” (Isa. 65:22), and here “tree” can only mean Torah, of which it is said, “She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her” (Prov. 3:18). Who was created for the sake of whom? Torah for the sake of Israel, or Israel for the sake of Torah? Was is not Torah that was created for the sake of Israel? Now, if Torah, which was created for the sake of Israel, will endure forever and ever, all the more so Israel, who were created for their own sake. (Eccles. R. 1:4, §4.)
