Tag Archives: Jew

Chabad describes Yad L’Achim founder as “a great pioneer for saving souls in Israel”

Posted on by
Reply

Anti-Messianic propagandists like to argue, that Messianic Jews are all crazy fools obsessed with saving souls, and that for Messianic Jews to even talk about souls and salvation is to sound creepy.

Here is an article from the official Chabad website, published today about Yad L’Achim founder Dov Lipschitz - a believer that Rebbe Schneerson and not Rabbi Yeshua is the true Jewish Messiah:

Lifshitz’s willingness to work with Jewish leaders of all stripes, and his ability to win the support of various religious factions, fueled an entire Jewish outreach movement in the religious community.

“He was the great pioneer in saving souls in [Israel],” said Rabbi Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss, chief rabbi for the Eda Charedit rabbinical court in Israel.

So much for Messianic Jews being the only Jews to talk about saving souls!

A follow-up on the Christ at the Checkpoint “Abomination” Scandal

Posted on by
9

In Stephen Sizer’s “I Can’t Believe It’s Not an Apology” blog post, he writes:

A day later, I spoke at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign event in Hammersmith. The event was stressful not least because of the heckling from certain Zionists present. I have been criticised for implying in an answer given during the question time that Messianic believers are ‘an abomination’. [...]

“I am sorry I made a mistake under duress and did not think through the implications of how my sentence would be interpreted especially by critics. I made a mistake and withdraw the statement.”

The clear implication here, is that Zionist Jews are responsible for Sizer’s bizarre and quite heavily anti-Jewish statement.

Actually, Sizer gets his antisemitic ideas from a variety of sources, including neo-Nazi websites, disgraced racists in porno mags, and international terrorists.

As per usual, something has gone belly-up for Sizer, but conveniently, some Zionist Jews can be blamed for it.

About whom is Isaiah 49 speaking?

Posted on by
227

This post appeared as a comment by Yehudah Meir

I was asked by someone to take a look at a messianic website entitled roshpinaproject. After skimming through it I found some of the discussions quite interesting to say the least. The one about Isaiah 49 particularly caught my attention and so I thought I would write an article on that discussion here, which I have also published there.

There are two main proponents in the discussion ‘Joseph’ (a Messianic) and ‘Moshe Shulman’ (an Orthodox Jew). Moshe Shulman basically asked messianics to prove 4 four things: (See his websites here –http://www.messiahtruth.com/response.html and herehttp://judaismsanswer.com/).

  1. Messianic ruler to be born of a virgin.
  2. Messianic ruler to be G-d incarnate.
  3. Messianic ruler to die for sins.
  4. Belief in the Messianic ruler (and his death/resurrection) needed to get atonement for sins.
  5. Messianic ruler to come twice, after many hundreds of years.

Okay, that’s five but whose counting!

Joseph basically chooses Isaiah 49:1-13 to prove these 5 points. First he says we need to figure out who Isaiah is speaking about in this passage. Joseph concludes that verses 5 and 6 speak about a messianic figure who: ‘God chooses…to restore and regather the children of Israel, and to be a light to the nations.’

Before I post something and criticise Joseph’s approach and his Christian suppositions I will first say that this comment here seems at first sight fair play. One does not have to do mental gymnastics, as messianics normally do, to come to the conclusions he has done. I may or may not agree with him as you will eventually see in my response but taken at face value he is not necessarily twisting the text to come to his conclusion.

Moshe then responded to Joseph here by saying that this text was not speaking about a messianic figure but rather about Isaiah himself. To do this he quoted the context and also showed how Jeremiah similarly prophesied about himself in Jeremiah 1:4-5. Fair comment, but what Moshe did not do after that was to then explain how Isaiah fulfilled the mission of verses 5 & 6 to restore and bring back the children of Israel. I am not saying that Moshe is wrong at this point but simply pointing out a weakness in his argument I noticed. That could have been because he had not finished his response, I am not sure.

Continue reading →

Shavuot

Posted on by
2

Guest post by Levitt

Having celebrated Hag Shavuot, I can’t help but be moved to write of the Messianic significance of this Feast of Pentecost.

Often the book of Leviticus, which God speaks directly to man more than any other, can seem difficult. There are so many references to small, dare I say obscure details, which seem out of sorts with today’s modern world.

So what does it mean to those of us who have accepted Yeshua as the Messiah?

Firstly before the loaves are raised there has to be a burnt offering of lambs, male sheep and a bull. Then you have the kid goat peace offering, which according to the Book of Numbers “atones for you”.

Well who is our burnt offering and peace offering? Who will do this on our behalf? Yeshua our Messiah became the burnt and peace offering. He became the Lamb sacrificed for us at Passover, take our sins and allowing the righteous anger of of God to Passover His people.

And what about the Goat? Well again Yeshua the Messiah, became our scapegoat, taking our sins upon Himself. Led out, kicked and beaten rejected by those He came to save, to carry away the sins of us all.

Now let us think of the two loaves. Loaves made with grain, wheat of the harvest.

Those who have read Yeshua’s teachings in the Gospels will know that He often talked of a harvest. The parables of the Wheat and the Tares teaches of a field of wheat, and the enemy sowing tares within it. The farmer gathers the wheat from the tares. The tares are then gathered and burned. In the parable the wheat is the believer in Him.

In other teaching He says He sends us out, and the fields are white unto harvest. Again it is believers who are to be harvested for his Kingdom.The wheat is taken, and ground to a fine flour, mixed with olive oil, which in Zechariah is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. But what is peculiar about Shavuot is not just the allowance of leaven, but even the command! Leaven in scripture is the representation of sin.

Why would you offer the representation of sin to a Holy God? And why two loaves? Shavuot as recorded in Acts 2 gives us an answer to this question.
Jew and Gentile would become part of the Body of Messiah, the Bride of Messiah. Fallen, Jew and Gentile believers in Messiah are represented by the two loaves. This entity, the Body of Messiah, started at Pentecost.

It is my belief, that the Feast of Shavuot is foreshadow of the greater work Yeshua the Messiah would accomplish on the Day of Pentecost when He sent the Holy Spirit (Olive Oil), to the first fruits of wheat harvested (The Disciples) who baked with leaven (they failings are well documented in the Gospels), and were offered to God and the Feast of Pentecost.

What a shame that most Gentile Christians don’t understand the importance of Shavuot because they have ignored its Hebrew roots. Jewish people know that at Shavuot, according to the Rabbis, the law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai. It was the start of His covenant with His people. What happened? The Israelites danced around the Golden Calf, and 3,000 were killed! Contrast this with Shavuot when Yeshua the Messiah sent the Holy Spirit, 3,000 were saved!

A new and better covenant as promised by Jeremiah was given to us. What a shame that many of us don’t recognise our own Messiah.

And what about the practise in Synagogues of decorating the Bimah with a canopy of flowers like a Huppah? Shavuot is mystically referred to as the day of the Matchmaker Moses, who brought the bride the Israelites to the Huppah of Mount Sinai, to marry the bridegroom (God).

The Ketubbah, the marriage contract was the Torah is read in some Eastern Sephardic services this day. What does this mean to us as Messianic Jews?

In Shavuot the matchmaker the Holy Spirit prepares a bride for the Yeshua the Messiah. He will bring his bride to the Wedding of the Lamb (Messiah). The contract (Ketubbah), the new covenant is drawn up, and we are sealed in the Holy Spirit that was given at Shavuot. Who paid the bride price? Messiah Himself on Calvary when He gave Himself as Lamb crucified. What a wonderful Ketubbah the Messiah has written for us in Jeremiah 31.

Jer. 31:31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Hope you enjoyed Shavuot!

Shalom Levitt.

Shmuely Boteach on Proselytising

Posted on by
Reply

Shmuely Boteach has a piece in the Jewish Journal of Greater LA entitled “An Evangelical Attempts to Proselytize Anthony Weiner“.

So what happened in this proselytising episode?

The piece begins:

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, tweeted a message to Congressman Anthony Weiner saying, “Dear Congressman Weiner: There is no effective ‘treatment’ for sin. Only atonement, found only in Jesus Christ.”

Oh, how terrible!

All Mohler did was to tweet his opinion on atonement, and that’s proselytising.

Shmuely then goes on to write a 700-word article on the nature of Jewish redemption!

So Mohler is proselytising but Shmuely isn’t?

It is tremendous chutzpah from Shmuely, although not as cheeky as his suggestion that the Catholic Church could avoid paedophilia scandals if the Pope kept Shabbat.

Shmuely, I take my hat off to you!

The Talmud on Idol-Worship and Divine Providence

Posted on by
2

 In the tractate on idol worship, Avodah Zerah (54b-55a), found in the Babylonian Talmud we read:

Raba son of R. Isaac said to Rab Judah: ‘There is an idolatrous shrine in our place, and whenever the world is in need of rain, [the idol] appears to [its priests] in a dream, saying, “Slay a human being to me and I will send rain.” They slay a human being to it and rain does come!’ He replied, ‘Now were I dead, nobody could have related to you a certain dictum of Rab, viz., What means that which is written, Which the Lord thy God hath divided [halak] unto all the peoples under the whole heaven!

This teaches that He made smooth [hehelik] their words to banish [idolaters] from the world. This is similar to what R. Simeon b. Lakish said: What means that which is written, Surely He scorneth the scorners, but He giveth grace unto the lowly! If one comes to defile himself he is granted facilities for so doing, and if he comes to purify himself support is given to him.

The Babylonian idol Marduk

The Babylonian idol Marduk

To summarise the story, one rabbi is asking another why God appears to listen to, and answer, the prayers of Pagans who offer Pagan sacrifices. Rav Isaac’s son is concerned that the Pagans are slaughtering humans to bloodthirsty idols, an idea totally abhorrent to Judaism.

God had led Abraham from a culture where human sacrifice was instituted, to creating a new approach to sacrifice which required the blood of animals to be shed on altars in Jerusalem.

As the Jewish nation developed and flourished, idolators were cut off from the land, and idolatrous foreign nations were judged and punished by God.

Yet in Babylonia hundreds of years later, the rabbi sees prayers of idol-worshippers apparently being answered. Not only that, but God is apparently allowing idols to appear to worshippers in dreams, demanding sacrifices, as if these idols were real gods and spirits.

R. Yehuda answers his colleague, that God himself has caused people to slip, by allowing them to worship idols and see false visions.

R. Yehuda then claims this is “similar” to what R. Shimon taught. R. Yehuda taught that God “caused” sinners to slip. R. Shimon taught that God “makes the scorners scornful”.

The issue of human choice is of particular interest to religious Jews, who believe that life provides a series of opportunities for us to choose between the right and wrong options.

Anti-Messianic polemicists sometimes claim – rather crudely – that Judaism only emphasises human choice, whereas to believe in Yeshua eliminates human choice.

In reality, we all have to struggle with our responsibility to make choices, and the sovereignty of God.

Continue reading →

Ha Achor

Posted on by
23

by Luke

In my previous post, Ha Ayin (“the eye”), we looked at a few of the amazing events in the lives of Avraham and Yakov. These were life-changing (and name changing) encounters with G-d. As we’ve seen, the text is clear that these instances are not like Enoch “walking” with G-d, Adam hearing the “voice of G-d walking”, or G-d appearing as a pillar of cloud. Rather these are physical,tangible manifestations of Adonai where He ate, spoke plainly, and even wrestled – all without smoke, fire, lightning, sounds of rushing water, or wheels within wheels – as everyday as hanging out with the Creator of time-space can be. We, therefore, have every reason to believe that G-d is able to manifest Himself any way that he likes and, in times past, on multiple occasions, He chose to appear in bodily form. But don’t take my word for it.

In today’s post, Ha Achor (“the back”), we’ll explore a few passages from the incredible life of Moshe. G-d seems to have genuinely enjoyed astounding Moshe with His amazing power. The miracles G-d wrought before Moshe’s eyes are well-worn territory and fairly common knowledge, even among non-believers. But, with all that is commonly known and has been discussed for centuries concerning Moshe’s life, it’s surprising to still hear claims that G-d is completely incorporeal. As we’ll see, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

I won’t be including verses that might quickly spring to mind when you think of Moshe, like Exodus 6:3 where G-d tells Moshe the He has appeared to his predecessors, or even Exodus 3:2, for that matter, where it clearly says that the Angel of the LORD appeared to Moshe in the burning bush, but when He speaks, amazingly, it’s the LORD talking! While these verses offer their own treasure (and deserve a future post), they don’t, upon examination, exhibit the tangible, bodily manifestations of G-d I’m talking about. For an encounter like that, let’s look at Exodus 24:10.

In this passage, Moshe and the men accompanying him actually see G-d. Incredibly, this verse makes reference to His feet and His hands – and casually mentions how the men sat there and ate. Immediately following that, we read in Exodus 24:16, that Moshe enters a cloud atop the mountain and sees the glory of the LORD as a “devouring fire”. There he stays for a while – wouldn’t you? So what do these seemingly contradictory passages mean? Is it just irresponsible record keeping or is it possible that G-d is able to appear however He likes, to whomever He wills – and if He wants to show you His glory one minute and His body the next, that’s what you’ll see? Some believe passages like verse 10 to be figurative, but scripture always illustrates when G-d is appearing in a vision, dream or bodily. Besides, why would G-d say things like, “You cannot see my face and live.“, as He does in Exodus 33:20, if He doesn’t actually have (or sometimes chooseto have) a face? He goes on to tell Moshe (in verse 22-23) that He will place him in a rock crevice and pass by, covering Moshe with His hand, then removing it so Moshe can see His back, but (again) not His face. Why (and how) would G-d go through all this if He were only a spiritual presence, as some believe? It just doesn’t make sense. Let’s look at just one more passage.

In Numbers 12:5-8, G-d comes to the defense of Moshe (against his brother and sister) and while in this instance He chooses to appear in the form of a cloud, it’s what He says that’s most revealing. “Hear my words, if there is a prophet among you, I will appear to him in a vision and speak to him in a dream. Not so with Moshe. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he sees the form of the LORD.” The word translated “form” is temunah, which means a solid form and is most commonly used when talking about a statue or carving – not an ethereal specter, mirage or otherwise. G-d explains that a prophet will only be allowed to see Him in a dream. In other words, not as He truly is. Moshe, on the other hand, is actually able to perceive G-d as He truly is – and that, sometimes, like it or not, is in bodily form.

Be sure to share your ideas and scripture references pertaining to this topic in the comment section below – even if (or, especially if) they seem to contradict those I’ve cited. We’ll explore them in another post on this topic soon.

Yad L’Achim: Israeli missionaries going abroad to preach Yeshua

Posted on by
4

A gem of a quote from Yad L’Achim’s meshichist leader Dov Lipschitz:

“there are 25,000 members of missionary communities in Israel now. They open one after another, funded by generous budgets. Israel has turned into a center of international missionary activity, where they now train missionaries to be sent abroad.”

Well, this makes a change from portraying missionaries as simply foreign Gentiles seeking to tell the Jews in Israel about Yeshua.

Instead, we are seeing Israeli Jews going abroad, spreading the message of Yeshua to the Gentiles.

And even Yad L’Achim admits this is happening!