Wyschogrod: Israel’s disobedience not the whole truth
Christian theology has always stressed Israel’s disobedience. And it was right to do so because it is a truth carefully recorded in the Bible. But it is not the whole truth. There is also Israel’s obedience, its stubborn faith in the promises of God in spite of the apparent hopelessness of it all. “Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem,” says Jeremiah (2:2-3), “saying, Thus saith the Lord: I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in the land that was not sown. Israel is holiness unto the Lord, and the first fruits of his increase, all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord.” To go after God into the wilderness, into a land that was not sown, is the very definition of Israel’s faith. (The Body of Faith: God and the People of Israel By Michael Wyschogrod)
Daily Minyan 
They always use the disobedience of Israel for the second exile. I usually tell them:
“What makes you think, it’s not because too many Jews accepted Yeshua that they went to the second exile?”
It’s interesting to think about that verse Gene, how could Israel ever followed G-d before Jesus arrived? That’s a good point to destroy there theory that Jesus is needed to follow G-d. I wonder what Christian would say and can only imagine something like “They all hoped in the coming and atoning of the messiah, that’s why they were following G-d”, or maybe “They had faith in the G-d of Abraham, Israel and Jacob” and they would tackled, “and that’s jesus”
Anyway, thanks for sharing :)
Waiting for Kavi to explain how Israel could be right with G-d, without their lower case god.. AKA Jesus
““What makes you think, it’s not because too many Jews accepted Yeshua that they went to the second exile?”
Remi, if you think about it, that does make a lot more sense that the vague reason of “hatred without cause” that supposedly existed between different groups of Jews at the time, the reason that rabbis later proposed (which was never a condition for exile in the Torah – while idolatry clearly is). If Acts is to be believed (which I do not), “multitudes” (thousands) of Jews believed in Jesus and began to worship him as god. That’s exile-worthy idolatry right there. And soon, lo and behold, we had a whole new idolatrous religion centered on worship of a deified dead Jewish man spreading fast among the Gentiles world over, by Jews no less (JC’s friends and devotees). If that’s not a good reason for exile, I don’t know what is.
“To go after God into the wilderness, into a land that was not sown, is the very definition of Israel’s faith.”
Well, I suppose that 400 years of slavery in Egypt helped, and being pursued by Pharoah’s army didn’t hurt. And let us not forget the rabbinic parable that God had to suspend Mt. Sinai over the heads of the Israelites to get them to agree to take on the Covenant.
The fact is, there has never been perfect faith among the Jewish people, but it’s not a necessary requirement by God either.
“What makes you think, it’s not because too many Jews accepted Yeshua that they went to the second exile?”
We know that Jews forced the Edomites to convert, we also know who ruled Jerusalem under Rome – An Edomite king, he was NOT from the line of David was he? Perhaps this is what Issac prophesied when he said, the yoke of serving your brother would removed from off your neck and the rebellion against Rome was Esua (who loved blood) and it was he who stayed to be slaughtered. Perhaps it was the real Jews that fled as Jesus warned them ahead of time. How can you call it the second exile when an Edomite ruled the thrown under a Pagan State Rome? It wasn’t – no one from the line of David or any other Jew was sitting on the throne. Also in the texts of the new testament is food offered to Idols, so that was going on in Jerusalem. G-d also said he would destroy the idols out of the land and that process clearly had not happened yet, worse – rome brought in hundreds more.